Hate Crimes Against Muslim Women

Baroness Berridge Excerpts

Monday 20th May 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Swinburne (Con)]

His Majesty’s Government have publicly confirmed, in response to Parliamentary Questions laid previously, that they do not intend to publish a new hate crime strategy. However, we remain committed to protecting all communities from crime and we have a number of programmes in place to do so. For example, the Government have worked with the police to fund True Vision, an online hate crime reporting portal designed so that victims of all types of hate crime do not have to visit a police station to report. We also fund the national online hate crime hub, a central capability designed to support individual local police forces in dealing with online hate crime. This is a cross-departmental piece of work. We are working with every department to try to make sure we cover all bases.

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, is it not important to ensure that young Muslim girls know how they should be treated when they are in the community, and where they can go for help? One of our best academy trusts is Star Academies, which runs Muslim faith schools. In light of the problems that have been outlined, can my noble friend perhaps beef up the teaching and the education in our schools to ensure that young Muslim people know where to go for help and what their expectation of how they are to be treated should be?

[Baroness Swinburne (Con)]

I totally agree with the noble Baroness. The Department for Education, the Home Office and all sorts of other departments are involved in this programme. It is really important that we make sure that everyone has the necessary skills to deal with this appropriately.