Non-Crime Hate Incidents

Baroness Doocey Excerpts

Monday 24th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

Again, there are robust mechanisms in place to deal with harassment, racial prejudice and other forms of harassing and abusive and threatening behaviour. The key element of a non-crime hate incident is that it does not reach a threshold of a crime incident but is, in essence, a method of collecting information. For example, in my noble friend’s case, if there were persistent and regular non-crime hate approaches that did not reach that threshold, it might well indicate to the police that there were other aspects of community cohesion behaviour they needed to investigate. The review will decide what happens in terms of police activity following up on a range of matters, and that is what we are awaiting shortly with some interest.

[Baroness Doocey (LD)]

My Lords, inspections by HMIC have found that about one-quarter of non-crime hate incidents are recorded incorrectly, with many people wrongly included. Following several reviews and repeated government assurances, can the Minister give an undertaking that the Government will finally establish a clear and publicly accessible appeals mechanism for individuals who believe they have been wrongly recorded as being involved in such incidents?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful for that question from the noble Baroness. The issue is that non-crime hate incidents are not currently fit for purpose. That includes a range of mechanisms relating to how the police interpret that, what they do with the information and indeed whether any information is collected incorrectly. I would love to give an answer today, but it is important that we listen and work with the police on the review they have commissioned. That will be with me shortly and, when it is, we will be able to come to some definitive conclusions and put a regime in place that meets the noble Baroness’s objective of assessing anti-social behaviour and racial concerns, as my noble friend has mentioned, but does so in a way that does not lead to mistakes, does not lead to false use by the police and is not a waste of police time in collecting that information.