Non-crime Hate Incidents

Lord Hogan-Howe Excerpts

Tuesday 19th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

One of the key elements of the Labour manifesto which will be brought forward this year by my right honourable friend the Home Secretary is establishing work to improve neighbourhood policing. Potentially, 13,000 officers will be put on to neighbourhood policing in order to build community strength and, in accordance with my noble friend’s wishes, to look at low-level crime, which is nevertheless an extremely important issue to the people who are victims of it.

[Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)]

My Lords, I support nearly everything that the noble Lord, Lord Austin, said. The recording of hate crime was a well-intended change, for the reasons he gave, but the definition of a crime is objective and the definition of hate crime is subjective. During the time this has been in place, online crime and online hate crime have grown massively, and the application of the hate crime definition has been inconsistent. I agree that it is time to review how this has been applied, which may therefore allow time for the police to visit crime scenes. That would not be a bad idea, because that is the best chance of detecting it.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

Non-crime hate incidents are not treated as crime, and they are not a big part of daily police work. The College of Policing—which the noble Lord will know well—and the inspectorate are making it clear that there needs to be a common-sense and consistent approach to the way in which they are recorded. But I hope I can assure the noble Lord that this Government are about securing additional police support to tackle the policing of neighbourhood crime and to give local support to the big issues of shoplifting and burglary, as well as domestic violence and violence against women and girls. That is a core part of the mission, and he can hold the Government to account and rest assured that we will do that over the course of the next four and a half years.