Latest: Labour MPs Tell Burnham to Scrap Conversion Practices Bill as Tories Withdraw Support

Labour MPs are calling on Prime Minister Andy Burnham to scrap the draft Conversion Practices Bill, warning that it could put parents and faith leaders in prison for ordinary conversations with children. At least a dozen Labour MPs have told party whips they are unhappy with the bill, according to The Telegraph, and a number of ministers are said to have "grave concerns". At the same time, the Conservatives have withdrawn their support for the ban, leaving the Government's flagship legislation isolated on both sides of the Commons.

The revolt is striking because it comes from inside Burnham's own party. These are not opposition MPs scoring points. They are Labour backbenchers telling their own Prime Minister that his bill would criminalise the very families it claims to protect, and asking him to drop it altogether.

The bill would create a new offence of abusive conversion practice in England and Wales, carrying a maximum sentence of five years in prison. A joint committee of MPs and peers is currently scrutinising the draft, and written evidence closes at 5 p.m. on Monday, 16 November. What happens next depends on whether Burnham listens to his MPs, or pushes ahead anyway.

Labour MPs Conversion Practices Bill Revolt November 2026

Tonia Antoniazzi, the Labour MP for Gower since 2017, has been the bluntest voice in the revolt. She fears the bill will have a chilling effect on parents who want to give their child loving advice, and she has called on the Prime Minister to step in and scrap the legislation. Speaking to The Telegraph, which has launched a campaign against the bill, she put it in the plainest terms a mother could use.

"Mothers are often closest to their children, they need to be brave and strong and look after their children. If parents are criminalised and families divided, it is mothers who will be affected."

She is not alone. Steve Yemm, the Labour MP for Mansfield, said he supports banning abusive and coercive conversion practices, but insisted on safeguards for honest conversation. "We must ensure that parents, teachers and clinicians can have open and honest conversations with young people questioning their gender, without fear of criminalisation," he said.

Mary Glindon, another Labour MP, warned that parents could become "criminally liable" for offering cautionary advice. The expert evidence, she said, has been clear: the drafting could result in parents, faith leaders, teachers and counsellors being unfairly restricted or even punished for raising concerns about a young person's decision to transition. She pointed out that the proposed offence does not even require an intention to cause any harm.

Conversion Practices Bill Parents Jail Fears and the Cass Review

The sharpest warning came from outside Parliament. Baroness Falkner, the former chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, co-wrote a report for the think tank Policy Exchange that called the draft bill "ideological, authoritarian, unworkable". The report, published on 2 November with barrister Akua Reindorf KC, said the bill sets no minimum age, so children as young as ten could in theory be prosecuted, and parents could be jailed for up to five years if they try to dissuade their children from transitioning.

Preet Kaur Gill, the Labour MP who served as a health minister earlier this year, warned last month that parents could face prosecution under the draft legislation, including for trying to dissuade their children from pursuing medical interventions before the age of eighteen. She voiced "serious concerns" and said the bill was not in keeping with the 2024 Cass Review into gender identity services for children, which recommended a cautious approach in light of unknown consequences and potential harms.

Graham Stringer, the veteran Labour MP, told The Telegraph that his biggest fear was that "parents would be denied the right to help their children if they were having deep anxieties about their sexuality, as lots of adolescents do". He said he would watch the debate closely, but that on what he now knows of the bill, he would vote against it.

The Free Speech Union, which campaigns against the bill, argues that abusive practices such as "corrective rape" and attempts to "pray the gay away" are abhorrent and already illegal. What the bill would really achieve, it says, is the criminalisation of parents and therapists who have well-intentioned conversations with gender-confused children, and of religious leaders who share their faith's teachings on sex, gender and marriage with their congregations. Church leaders elsewhere in Europe are drawing similar lines, as French Bishops Tell Catholic Hospitals to Refuse Assisted Dying reported.

Conservatives Withdraw Support as Burnham Presses Ahead

On 11 November, the row widened, and the break occured in full public view. The Guardian reported that the Conservatives have withdrawn their previous backing for the proposed ban, with leader Kemi Badenoch calling the legislation "unworkable" and "a waste of time". Badenoch, who looked at the bill when she was Equalities Minister in the last Conservative government, warned that it would lead to parents being arrested for looking after their children.

Equalities Minister Bridget Phillipson defended the bill in the Commons on 11 November, saying abusive conversion practices had no place in Britain and that the draft had been submitted for pre-legislative scrutiny so it could be properly considered. Downing Street insisted the draft legislation "doesn't touch regular parenting" and would not prevent open, exploratory or challenging conversations between young people, parents, teachers, clinicians or pastoral leaders. A Government spokesman called the Policy Exchange report "misleading".

The Government's own impact assessment estimates that between 75,000 and 93,000 people a year in England and Wales experience conversion practices. Nobody in the debate disputes that genuine abuse should be punished. The argument is about where the line falls, and whether a badly drawn law would catch loving parents and faithful pastors along with abusers. American courts are drawing similar lines around religious schools, as Supreme Court Leans to Catholic Schools in Colorado Case reported.

That is the same warning British Christians raised when the draft was first published, as UK Conversion Therapy Bill 2026: Christians Warn Parents and Pastors Could Face Prison reported. What has changed is who is now saying it. In October it was campaigners and church leaders. Now it is Labour MPs, Labour ministers, a former equalities watchdog chief and the leader of the opposition, all saying the same thing in the same week.

The clock is now ticking. Written evidence to the joint committee closes on Monday, 16 November, and the committee's verdict will shape whether the bill survives in its current form. Burnham can listen to his MPs and drop it, amend it beyond recognition, or push ahead and dare his own party to vote against him. Antoniazzi has made her choice clear, and she did it in language no Prime Minister can easily ignore: mothers, she said, are the ones who will be affected if parents are criminalised and families divided. The question now is whether the man at the top of her party is listening.