WARRINGTON North MP Charlotte Nichols is urging Boris Johnson to fast track the outlawing of controversial “Conversion Therapy” following the resignation of three members of the Government’s LGBT advisory panel.
Yesterday Jayne Ozanne resigned from the panel, stating that the Government has created a ‘hostile environment’ for LGBT+ people following comments made by the Equalities Minister regarding so-called conversion therapy.
This came after a Westminster Hall debate on Monday in which Equalities Minister Kemi Badenoch said that the Government wanted to ‘end’ so-called conversion therapy, but did not use the word ‘ban.’
Ozanne called on the Prime Minister ‘to act, to understand that the proposals that are going forward on conversion therapy do not have the confidence of the LGBT community, do not have the confidence of many senior religious leaders who’ve also called for a ban.’
Two other members of the panel, James Morton and Ellen Murray also announced yesterday that they were resigning from the panel.
Responding to the resignations, Ms Nichols said:“The three resignations from the Government’s LGBT Advisory Panel are a damning indictment of its failure to act to ban conversion therapy.
Monday’s debate showed that there is clear cross-party support to do so but the Prime Minister has prevaricated on an issue in which LGBT+ people simply cannot wait for action.
“I bitterly regret the loss of these three important advocates for the LGBT+ community but I hope that it serves as a wake-up call to the Prime Minister that he must act now.”
Earlier this week Ms Nichols represented the Labour Party in a parliamentary debate on banning so-called LGBT conversion therapy.
As Shadow Minister for Women and Equalities she outlined Labour’s opposition to the therapies as “disgusting, exploitative, damaging and a relic of bigotry.”
She criticised the Government’s delay in banning it, noting the Prime Minister’s comments last year that “What we are going to do is a study right now on, you know, where is this actually happening, how prevalent is it, and we will then bring forward plans to ban it”.
She said: “LGBT+ people simply cannot wait for the Government to dither and delay while this abhorrent practice is allowed to continue.
“The Government’s 2018 LGBT Action Plan remains unimplemented and the 2020 update to it remains unpublished. The Minister’s response did not lay out a timescale or concrete actions going forward. We need action now.”
