Ministers may reopen plans to ban gay cure 'therapies' after MPs and the Church of England pushed for the practice to be outlawed.
Health and equalities minister Jackie Doyle-Price met with church commissioner and Tory MP Dame Caroline Spelman and Labour's Ben Bradshaw MP this week to discuss possible legislation to prevent 'conversion therapy'.
Ms Doyle-Price told Christian Today the government was committed to eradicating gay cure therapies and would look into additional steps to make this happen.
'The Government's position is clear – we condemn gay conversion therapy. Sexuality is not something to be cured. So called gay conversion therapy causes harm and it must be eradicated,' Doyle-Price told Christian Today.
'Last year we ran a national survey of LGBT people in the UK, which included questions about whether they have been offered or undertaken conversion therapy. This will help us investigate what additional steps we could take to end this practice. We are currently analysing the survey answers, and will publish our response later this year,' she said.
The meeting comes after Bradshaw raised the issue in the House of Commons repeatedly, telling ministers: 'This so-called therapy does dreadful, dreadful damage to young people's emotional and psychological health and it is long overdue to be banned.'
The Church of England passed a motion last year that signed itself up to a statement endorsed by the Royal College of GPs as well as the UK Council for Psychotherapy that branded gay cure therapies as having 'no place in the modern world'.
It called on the government to ban the practice with the archbishop of York, John Sentamu, describing conversion therapy as 'theologically unsound, so the sooner the practice of [it] is banned, I can sleep at night'.
The government initially condemned 'conversion therapy' but did not want to legislate against it because 'existing voluntary registers provide safeguards for the public',' Spelman said earlier this year.
However ministers are now saying they will look again at new laws to ban gay cure therapy.
'They admit that there is a problem and a big problem,' Bradshaw told Christian Today. 'They are undertaking to get further evidence to determine what laws they could do.'
He added: 'There are still concerns about what goes on in some big churches and some faith communities. The minister was very clear that it [conversion therapy] is completely unacceptable, very damaging to young people and it scarred them for life.
'I was very encouraged by the minister's approach.'
