Hate Crime

Baroness Hussein-Ece Excerpts

Tuesday 18th October 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

The noble Lord is absolutely right: in the post-EU referendum period we did see a spike in hate crimes, particularly those that were racially motivated. I held a number of round tables with people of different religions in Manchester and met the Polish ambassador following the graffiti and hatred directed towards the Polish community in Hammersmith. It was very clear that it was a spike in crime motivated by people who used the EU referendum as an opportunity to vent their hate. I am very pleased that those figures have now calmed right down to almost normal levels. However, it teaches us a lesson that, in light of events that might cause such feelings, we need to quell them quickly.

[Baroness Hussein-Ece (LD)]

My Lords, as the Minister mentioned, the incidence of race and religious hate crimes has gone up by some 40%. The figure the Home Office released is 5,468 at the end of July. Can she say how many of those incidents have been properly investigated, whether there have been any convictions and whether she has any figures? Until there are convictions and examples are made to show that we will not tolerate hate crime as a society, it will continue. As the Minister is aware, many more people do not report this sort of incident and the figure could well be double the 40% that the Home Office has reported.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

One of the things that we did while I was in my other job in the DCLG was to encourage people to report both anti-Muslim and anti-Semitic hatred through the CST, Tell MAMA and the True Vision website, which encourages people to report hate crimes. Yes, there has been an increase in hate crime, but there has also been an increase in its reporting. In terms of prosecutions for hate crime—I asked that question earlier today because I was genuinely interested in the answer—there have been 15,442 in 2015-16. That is a 4.8% increase on the previous year. There has also been a very depressing 41% increase in disability hate crime. We cannot relax across any of those strands that we are looking at.