Is Boris’s gay conversion therapy ban enough?

Gay conversion therapy has been heading for a ban for a few years now, with Boris Johnson repeatedly pledging to stop the ‘absolutely abhorrent’ practice. The government is working on the details of such a ban, which is not without its problems, particularly when it comes to therapy for transgender people. But it would be the first time the government has got at all involved in the world of therapy and counselling, which is not currently subject to statutory regulation.

Ministers’ current position is that government regulation of the sector would not be ‘proportionate or effective’. It may well be that the current network of organisations with which counsellors and psychotherapists can register provides sufficient oversight and that the government shouldn’t get involved beyond the gay conversion ban. That doesn’t, however, mean there isn’t a problem with the provision of therapy in this country that goes far wider than the treatment of same-sex attraction as a mental problem to allegedly be ‘cured’.