Conversion crisis for councils

The proposed Conversion Practices Bill is a trojan horse, designed to enshrine concepts like transgender identity, asexual and non-binary in law, by threatening non-believers with criminal punishment. The potential harms are obvious to many, but the significant impact that it would have on local authorities has not been considered by the government. 

There are 178 councils across England and Wales with responsibility for children and every council has safeguarding duties. The government’s own impact assessment of the bill estimates a total cost to the public sector of £46 million, of which ‘Public sector one-off familiarisation costs are estimated to be £45.8 million, occurring in the first year after the introduction of the legislation.’ Whilst it may be true that training public sector employees on the new law would cost £45.8 million, it seems extremely unlikely that other costs would come to just £200,000. In fact, this £200,000 is earmarked to pay for the same Victim Support Service that Sex Matters recently investigated, finding ‘Only 51 clients approached Galop seeking help specifically because of alleged conversion practices.’ 

The impact assessment admits that the MoJ is still working on estimated costs for the justice system, but who is looking at this for local authorities? When you consider that the average cost of a Looked After child has increased by 28% from £65,002 to £83,174 over the last five years, you can begin to imagine the scale of the unexamined costs to the public sector. 

The Gay Men’s Network (GMN) response to the proposed bill highlights how even an allegation of an offence under it could trigger intervention by a local authority. Family barrister Sarah Phillimore has separately warned of the likely consequences:

“It is very difficult to see how, if parents are facing charges of ‘conversion practices’, a local authority would not consider this at least a risk of significant harm, and therefore be under a statutory duty to apply for care or supervision orders, and in the worst-case scenario apply for the immediate removal of the child, or even all the children in the family.”

As GMN points out, the duties referred to here are contained in section 47(3) of the Children Act 1989 and require the local authority to apply for care or supervision orders where the harm threshold is reached.

As well as the financial implications for local authorities, many employees, from social workers to SEND specialists, will be at risk of prosecution. Due to the ambiguous wording of the bill, even those social workers who enthusiastically affirm the claimed ‘transgender identity’ of troubled kids could face prosecution for causing those individuals to believe they have such a thing. The chilling effect this will have on any conversations with children exhibiting trans ideation is predictable, as is the isolation and increased distress those children will experience as a result. 

Many of these employees have been misinformed on the topic for years, by the same, or similar, organisations that provided the highly questionable evidence that this bill is based on, and misrepresented the Equality Act so egregiously the Supreme Court had to be involved. What chance do they have of accurately understanding this bill and the personal risks it will create for them? 

In Devon, we are fortunate to have at least some councillors who understand the necessity for this draft bill to be scrutinised properly by local authorities, and for the parliamentary scrutiny committee to be informed of the findings. Cllr Neil Stevens submitted this motion for the most recent meeting, and it will now be considered by both the Children’s Scrutiny Committee and the Health and Adult Care Scrutiny Committee. 

Devon also has one of the highest rates of child referrals to gender services, so it seems advisable that they should seek to understand why, and think about whether this might leave them open to prosecution under Clause 5 of the Bill. This clause imposes criminal liability on bodies corporate and unincorporated bodies for the main offence and for an offence contained in Clause 5 (2) of failing to take reasonable steps to prevent the commission of the main offence by the body in question. 

Ideally, we will see many other councils sitting up and paying attention to this draft bill, and assessing the impact this may realistically have in their areas, on their employees and on their residents. Hopefully their feedback will open some eyes on the parliamentary scrutiny committee and stop them progressing this dangerous bill any further.

Jenny Dingsdale is a worried mum, member of  Reality Not Labels  and supporter of  Bin The Bill.