Stalking

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Tuesday 14th May 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

The noble Lord is absolutely right to point out that stalking is, at its heart, an obsessive undertaking. Often these obsessions are linked to mental conditions and the police need to recognise what stalking looks like. We have, therefore, talked about training, which is the only way to catch perpetrators and, in many cases, to bring them to justice.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, one option that would benefit the police when dealing with this sort of crime is for misogyny to be made a hate crime, along with racial and religious hatred, homophobia and so on. Is that something the Government are thinking about bringing forward legislation on? We obviously have a fair amount of time here and could probably deal with it quite quickly.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

The noble Baroness makes a good point. She will know that we have asked the Law Commission to look at various types of hate crime. Misogyny is among the things they could look at to see whether there is anything further we can do in legislation to enhance the types of crime we consider hate crimes.