Olivia Bailey, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Equalities (Credit: House of Commons)

3 min read7 min

Olivia Bailey, the minister for LGBT+ equalities, said parents would not be given any “carve-out” from the government’s planned ban on “abusive conversion practices” which cause “serious harm” to the victim. Those found guilty of breaching the proposed law could be sentenced to up to five years in prison.

Amid concern from religious and gender-critical campaigners that the draft Conversion Practices Bill could undermine parental autonomy, Bailey insisted the legislation will not prevent parents from choosing how to raise their children, as the courts will only convict people guilty of practices which meet strict thresholds for abuse.

The minister told The House magazine: “This is about abuse; it is about a very specific form of abuse. It is not about policing opinions, it is not about policing how parents parent, and it is for the courts to determine, not politicians, but – rightly – for the courts to determine what meets that threshold of abuse.”

Asked whether she expects any parents to go to prison as a result of the legislation, she said: “I think that anybody committing abuse, no matter where you find it, no matter in what walk of life – there are not carve-outs for abuse by parents in any other legal environment.

“So I think it is completely right that we just say very clearly in this legislation: we want to stop abuse, we want to stop abuse wherever it happens. Full stop. End of story.”

The bill defines a conversion practice as “any conduct” carried out with the intention of causing another person to have or not to have, or to believe they have or do not have, a particular sexuality or transgender identity.

But an offence only occurs where that conduct “amounts to an abuse of the individual”. In determining that, consideration would be given as to whether words or behaviour “of a sexual nature” or which are “violent or threatening” or “controlling or coercive” have been used, as well as whether “economic” or “psychological or emotional” pressure has been applied, “among other things”.

The victim must also have been caused “serious harm” to their “mental or physical health”, or “serious alarm or distress” which has a “substantial adverse effect on their usual day-to-day activities”.

The law will not only prohibit conversion practices aimed at making someone straight or cisgender and will, at least in principle, apply equally to practices aimed at making someone adopt an LGBTQ+ identity.

Healthcare services will be exempt from the bill’s provisions, except where a healthcare practitioner “falls far below the standards reasonably expected of a person in their position”.

The full interview with Olivia Bailey on the draft Conversion Practices Bill will feature in the next edition of The House magazine in print and online.

4 min read6 min

It has been seven decades since Parliament passed the Clean Air Act in response to one of the worst public health crises in modern British history – the Great Smog. Since then, the legislation has saved thousands of lives.

But despite major progress on cleaning our air, today air pollution remains the largest environmental risk to public health in the UK. As well as damaging almost every organ in our body, poor air quality hits our economy hard, putting strain on health services and reducing productivity. That’s why, with Andy Burnham looking for bold ways to secure growth, cleaning our air must be a major part of the answer.

Action to secure cleaner air delivers profound benefits, and the UK has already taken the lead in some areas.

Witness the success of London’s ultra-low emissions zone (ULEZ), the world’s largest clean air zone. Recent research shows that between 2019 – when ULEZ was introduced – and 2024, estimated deaths associated with air pollution in London reduced by around 40 per cent.

Transformative policies like this can face opposition when first proposed, but public health outcomes are hard to argue with. Clean Air Zones in Bradford, Bristol, Birmingham and Sheffield have also shown their impact, with restricted-traffic zones leading to a reduction in cardiovascular disease and strokes.

Proven and affordable solutions to air pollution exist, but we need the political will to implement them. Clean air is beneficial for health and the environment, but is also good for economic development, too.

New research from CBI Economics finds that if the UK sees through its planned net zero policies, we will benefit hugely from cleaner air. We can secure a £7.7bn boost to our economy by 2050 through productivity gains as a result of improved health, reduced absences and longer working lives. Between 2011 and 2022, improvements in air quality accounted for around a third of labour productivity growth across the EU, according to OECD estimates.

In the UK, the CBI Economics report shows 38m additional working days could be returned to our economy by 2050. We would avoid 264,000 premature deaths and almost 500,000 hospital admissions. With an A&E admission costing between £114 – £563, this would mean major NHS savings.

Yet despite these enormous opportunities, the UK risks falling behind. We have far less ambitious air quality targets than the EU, and the UK isn’t in line with air quality guidelines from the World Health Organization (WHO). There are worrying signs that progress could be slowed further. Recent talk of the government weakening the UK’s 2030 electric vehicle sales targets would undermine one of the most important drivers of cleaner air and threaten the multiple benefits that stronger action could unlock.

As Burnham prepares to become PM, he has the opportunity to build on the leadership shown by some of our cities on clean air measures. What better way to signal that change in direction than introducing a new Clean Air Act with stronger legal limits for major pollutants, a commitment to accelerate the transition to zero emission vehicles, and clean heating for many more buildings.

With England having just sweltered through its hottest June on record, the importance of staying on track with the UK’s climate plans – a huge part of which means cleaner air for everyone – couldn’t be felt more acutely. Europe’s recent heatwaves triggered widespread ozone pollution episodes, with hundreds of monitoring stations exceeding the WHO’s ozone guideline. Indeed, heatwaves create a dangerous feedback loop; hotter temperatures produce more ozone, and ozone itself contributes to climate warming.

Burnham faces a huge array of pressures, but cleaning our air will enable him to address multiple interconnected areas. Given the economic, health, productivity and climate gains on offer, the case for action could not be simpler and clearer.

Jane Burston OBE is the CEO of Clean Air Fund

4 min read12 min

In Thinks Insight & Strategy’s latest focus groups with 2024 Labour voters now considering Reform, conducted on 24-25 June, participants were, for the first time since the general election, equivocal about Nigel Farage. 

As researchers, particularly when dealing with qualitative data, we should always be cautious about drawing conclusions from small numbers of conversations. And it is really important to say that these voters were far more positive about Reform than about any other option available to them.

But the tone and energy amongst these participants definitely felt more muted – less convinced that Farage ‘gets it’ and is different from other politicians – than in any focus groups we have conducted with this audience in the past two years.

The ‘anti-politics’ sentiments that have characterised conversations with these voters since the election were still present. The sense that none of the mainstream parties have the interests of ‘ordinary people’ at heart. That they are failing to put British people first. That they simply can’t grip the problems the country faces.

But while, for many, Reform is still the only truly credible alternative to the mainstream parties, the bullishness that the party truly represents a break from the past, and that it will deliver the change they feel the country needs, was more muted than previously.

The change was mainly down to a shift in perceptions of Farage.

In the focus groups, carried out in two constituencies, Pontefract and Thurrock, voters said:

“Yes, probably. Got no choice… I’ll have to give him a chance, but… I’m not a big fan of Nigel Farage.” 

“I’m not a fan, to be perfectly honest… the party could do good… let’s give Reform a chance, but yeah, maybe they should have someone else in charge.”

“He got a £5m gift from a donor … I don’t know who it was. It was some businessman based over in Thailand or something, and he said it wasn’t for anything, and he said … it was for his own security. And, well, you know, come on, man, you can’t say that you’re a man of the people whilst getting £5m gifts. It’s just not on.”

“There’s some hoo-ha about him receiving £5m as a gift, and there’s been questions asked: ‘Well, why were you given that? Was that by influence?’ He’s kind of answered it by saying it’s not really anybody’s business but his own, which you kind of think, okay. That kind of makes me think you’re hiding something.”

“They are losing momentum… they are very Nigel Farage heavy, so the more he slows down, the more that party doesn’t have anything else, leadership-wise.”

Where once Farage was the spear-point of the party’s appeal, embodying its anti-establishment, tell-it-as-it-is, common sense, in our latest focus groups, some respondents seemed less sure that Farage is truly different from other politicians.

Even among those most strongly considering a vote for Reform at the next general election, Farage was beginning to look less like the party’s main selling point, and more of a source of concern. While some felt he is what makes Reform and that the party is completely reliant on him, others went so far as to say he was a liability for Reform, and that it could do better without him.

Interestingly, the sentiment felt stronger amongst participants who are struggling financially.

In the most financially pressured groups, the £5m “gift” was spontaneously raised as a concern. The scale of the gift, and Farage’s assertion (one of several justifications he’s offered) that he needs the sum to feel secure, felt completely divorced from the realities of these voters’ day-to-day lives and financial worries. Few had believed that Farage was really ‘like them,’ but this made it harder than ever to believe he could truly understand their lives. 

Amongst the public as a whole, our most recent survey also shows an increasing sense among the UK public that Reform may have peaked. In June 2025, 47 per cent thought Reform was going to go from strength to strength. Now only 36 per cent do so. They are more likely to agree that Reform has peaked and is unlikely to grow its support (48 per cent).

Ben Shimshon is Co-founder and CEO of Thinks Insight & Strategy

To mark the ten year anniversary of the EU referendum on 23 June, UK in a Changing Europe experts have written a short series of blogs reflecting on some of the issues at the heart of Brexit then and now. Here, Catherine Barnard reflects on the legal implications of Brexit.

One of the most common questions asked post-Brexit is: has the law changed much? In the run up to the referendum, Brexiters had made a big play on taking back control of our laws. This was reiterated in the government’s 2018 Command Paper: ‘EU law in the UK will end, as will the jurisdiction of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU).’ It continued, ‘The laws that we live by will once again be passed by our elected representatives in Belfast, Cardiff, Edinburgh and London – who are fully accountable to the people of the UK. UK courts will no longer refer cases to the CJEU, with our Supreme Court truly supreme.’

Has this happened? The answer is yes – and no.

Let’s start with the adoption of new, post-Brexit laws. It is certainly the case that, post-Brexit, the UK has had the freedom to legislate for itself. However, that freedom to develop new UK rules has been constrained by four factors.

First, a lack of clarity as to what a new, independent UK regime might look like, not least because there was so little planning done before Brexit. Financial services were seen as an obvious contender for reform. The cap on bankers’ bonuses, introduced after the 2008 financial crisis, has been removed. However, the scale of divergence on financial services has been less than anticipated, given it was identified by the Chancellor in 2022 as a priority sector for regulatory reform.

Second, there has been a question of civil service/government and legislative capacity. With so much energy devoted to preparing for a no-deal Brexit, then delivering Brexit itself, and then Covid, there has been little time to develop an independent UK regulatory regime.

Third, some areas, like environmental protection and workers’ rights, are subject to the so-called ‘level playing field’ provisions in the Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA), which forbid either side from reneging on 2020 levels of protection and the UK from failing to broadly keep up with new EU rules. Significant divergence from EU rules (leading to weaker standards) in these areas would eventually lead to tariffs.

Fourth, to protect the Good Friday Agreement, the Northern Ireland Protocol (NIP)/Windsor Framework (WF) requires Northern Ireland to dynamically align (i.e. keep up to date) with about 300 EU rules. The greater the regulatory divergence by the other UK nations, the ‘harder’ the GB/NI border would become, meaning that more checks would take place, creating more disruption to the movement of goods. More generally, manufacturers did not want regulatory divergence from EU rules, since this would increase their costs in respect of GB/NI and GB/EU trade. The devolved administrations were not keen to depart either.

What about pre-existing EU law? Some hoped that Brexit would mean the wholesale repeal of EU law on the UK statute book. However, there was no new UK regulatory regime for matters as diverse as airline safety, food safety and workers’ rights. Continuity, and not repeal, was therefore the order of the day. This was delivered by the EU (Withdrawal) Act 2018 which took a snapshot of all EU legislation on the UK statute book and ensured it continued after Brexit. Some legislation, such as the rules on free movement, was turned off because it was no longer suitable in the post-Brexit world. Other legislation was amended to remove, for example, references to the European Commission and to replace them with UK equivalent bodies.

But that still left a huge swathe of EU-derived legislation, known as retained EU law (REUL). The problem was: no one knew how much. Originally it was thought to be about 2,500 pieces yet, as of early 2026, that number had grown to almost 7,000. Jacob Rees Mogg MP wanted a ‘bonfire of EU rules to power Brexit innovations’, which he aimed to deliver via the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill. A change of Prime Minister (Rishi Sunak) put a stop to such wholesale ‘arson’ but did ensure that the concept of supremacy of EU law (i.e. EU law taking precedence over conflicting national law) was removed from the UK statute book. Retained EU law was renamed as assimilated law.

Since Rishi Sunak’s time as Prime Minister, enthusiasm from government for regulatory divergence has waned, largely because of pressure from business, to the extent that now the (Labour) government’s position is that divergence should be ‘the exception, not the norm’. And if future agreements with the EU are signed, on matters such as SPS (sanitary and phytosanitary standards) and emissions trading, these will also require not just catching up with the EU rules which have been adopted since Brexit but also staying up to date with new rules. And this will mean the government having to take the power to implement EU rules by secondary, not primary, legislation – providing only a minimal scrutiny role for MPs.

And what about the role of the European Court of Justice (CJEU). Finished? Not so fast. Pre-Brexit case law continues to bind UK courts unless the Supreme Court or the Court of Appeal decides otherwise. They have been reluctant to do so. Even post-Brexit EU case law should be taken into account by the UK courts when interpreting a provision of assimilated law. References (i.e. questions) to the CJEU have largely been stopped except in respect of matters under the NIP/WF and the citizens’ rights element of the Withdrawal Agreement (until 2028). The CJEU also has a say on the interpretation of concepts of EU law which arise in the context of any disputes under the Withdrawal Agreement which goes to arbitration. A question must be referred to the CJEU although it is the arbitration panel which makes the final decision. A similar mechanism is likely to be provided for under any future UK-EU agreement on, for example, SPS or emissions trading. Under the TCA, which is a free trade agreement under international law, the CJEU has no role to play. But even here, in the first and only UK-EU dispute – on sand eels – the parties and interveners referred to concepts of EU law in their arguments.

EU law may have formally gone in Great Britain, but it is far from forgotten. Future agreements with the EU mean more EU law, not less, and the CJEU will continue to have a residual role.

By Catherine Barnard, Senior Fellow, UK in a Changing Europe & Professor of EU Law and Employment Law, University of Cambridge.

3 min read7 min

Across Britain, too many young people are growing up believing that they will be worse off than their parents. Communities that once offered pathways into skilled work have seen industries disappear and investment pass them by. If Labour is to shape the future, it must begin with the young; that means making skills, jobs, and opportunity the central mission of the next Labour leadership.

 

For too many wasted years under the last government, our sluggish economy was characterised by low pay, insecure work, and a chronic failure to invest in the talents of our people. We’re now reaping what the Conservatives sowed. 

Young people do not lack ambition or need lectures about hard work. They need a government prepared to back them with apprenticeships, vocational education, and a foot on the ladder to high-quality jobs in every region of the country. That can be our government.

 

We should be creating a new generation of skilled workers in advanced manufacturing, green energy, construction, digital industries, transport and public services. Every young person should know that if they are willing to train, gain qualifications and contribute to society, there will be a job for them. This is not simply an economic argument. It is a moral one.

 

Work is about more than a wage packet. It provides purpose, responsibility and belonging. Strong communities are built when people feel they have a stake in society and confidence in their future. The dignity of work will always be a core Labour value because it empowers individuals and strengthens families.

 

That is why we must also be honest about the dangers of long-term welfare dependency. The welfare state should always provide security for those who need it. It should protect people from hardship, support those with disabilities, and help families through difficult times. These are principles Labour must never abandon.

 

But we should never accept a situation where, like under the Thatcher government, young people are signed off, written off, left without a route into employment. This damages confidence, limits aspirations and creates a dangerous sense of isolation. That isn’t compassion – a life spent trapped outside the labour market has profound consequences for individuals and society as a whole.

 

The answer is opportunity. We can support people when they fall while also doing everything possible to help them rise.

 

I understand young people’s concerns about the job market they face. The AI revolution is changing the way we work, the skills we need and the opportunities on offer for future generations – in as profound a way as the industrial revolution. But while it will undoubtedly both create and destroy jobs, I have no doubt it will also reward those nations who build the capacity, the infrastructure, and the workforce to take on this challenge.

 

As Alan Milburn’s report has laid bare, a million young people not in education, work or training cannot be the new normal. Pat McFadden has made a good start tackling this with the Youth Guarantee, which will help half a million young people, including those who have been out of work for 18 months. This government is rightly expanding apprenticeships for young people and developing new vocational qualifications.

The next leader must keep their foot on the gas and drive this agenda forward to create a genuine new deal for our young people.

Patrick Hurley is the Labour MP for Southport

More than a quarter of the House of Commons has signed an amendment calling for a national commission on electoral reform, in what backers are describing as an “open goal” for Andy Burnham, the likely incoming prime minister. 

The amendment to the Representation of the People Bill, tabled by Labour MP Alex Sobel, has attracted 166 signatures, making it the most-signed amendment to any piece of proposed legislation since the 2024 general election. A total of 88 Labour MPs have backed the bill. 

This development means the amendment has surpassed the 164 signatures gathered by Meg Hillier’s reasoned amendment to the government’s welfare bill in June/July 2025, which triggered a tortured climbdown from the government. 

Supporters of the electoral reform amendment span eight political parties as well as independents, including Labour, Liberal Democrat, Green, Plaid Cymru, Scottish National Party (SNP), Alliance, Your Party and Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) MPs. 

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