Hate Crime

Baroness Hussein-Ece Excerpts

Tuesday 5th July 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Keen of Elie]

With respect to the noble Lord, it is not appropriate to seek to draw a line between the referendum result and those who have taken it as an opportunity to express xenophobia and racist positions. I think it is obvious to all that the vote in the referendum can be attributed to a split in the Labour Party and not to a split in the Conservative Party.

[Baroness Hussein-Ece (LD)]

My Lords, there has been a fivefold increase—500%—in reported hate crime. As we know, the majority of these incidents are not reported. I have been abused online. In the last fortnight, since Brexit, members of my family and people I know, of all colours, races and religions—and of no religion or faith—have been subjected to this. Will the Minister support the initiative by a national coalition of race equality groups, including the Runnymede Trust? These groups have come together to ask for leadership and solidarity from all politicians around this House and in the other place and from the media to reject racism and hate crime and to stop pandering to intolerance. We should have zero tolerance of this kind of behaviour in this country.

[Lord Keen of Elie]

I agree with the noble Baroness that we, on all sides of this House, are ready to condemn racism and xenophobia. We have a common interest and a common outlook in so far as this is concerned. With regard to the increase in reported race hate crime, there have been significant increases in the period 2010 to 2016, but one must be careful of these statistics because much of the increase is attributed to the fact that we have introduced a better reporting system, including the reporting portal, True Vision.