Hate Crime

Debate between Baroness Warsi and Lord Young of Cookham

Tuesday 13th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

My Lords, the noble Lord has been a policeman and is now a politician. He will know that the figures to which he has referred can be looked at from two dimensions. The police have their own perception. The Government have the one that I just set out: that there has been a real-terms increase in resources available to the police. On top of the resources that we are putting into the police, it is also important to put on the record that we are taking forward our plans for tackling hate crime. There are a number of other initiatives that we have taken in order to tackle far and extreme right-wing activism, for example. There is the Anti-Muslim Hatred Working Group and its achievements. We have also funded Tell MAMA, which I mentioned a few moments ago, with £1.9 million. We are putting £1.2 million into Remembering Srebrenica and we are putting £2.4 million over three years into the security of all faith establishments, including mosques. There are a number of other initiatives, including £900,000 to support community projects, so on top of the resources for the police—and we can disagree about what perspective is put on those—there are other initiatives that we are taking to tackle hate crime.

[Baroness Warsi (Con)]

My Lords, it gives me no comfort or pleasure to say this, but for the sake of completeness I would like to put on record some details of the letter that has now been received by households across the United Kingdom, including those of some Members of Parliament. This is a letter that gives out points for punishing a Muslim. A few examples are: points for verbally abusing a Muslim, pulling the headscarf off a Muslim woman, throwing acid in the face of a Muslim, beating up a Muslim, torturing a Muslim with electrocution, butchering a Muslim with a knife—and it goes on. This needed to be put on record to describe what is happening in 2018.

I received a long message from a friend. At the end of it, she said:

“I urge you, Sayeeda, please do not go out on 3 April. It is Punish a Muslim day”.


I will, along with many other Muslims, be going out on 3 April because we will not be intimidated in this way. The facets of hate crime—children being bullied in playgrounds, women being assaulted on our streets, the media destroying reputations, the low-level and the high levels of Islamophobia that are now prevalent in our society—add up to what I call in my book the Seven Sins of Islamophobia, showing the way in which even the respectable now rationalise bigotry.

Will the Minister urge the Prime Minister to go further on this issue? I am delighted that the initiatives that he referred to—the cross-government Working Group on Anti-Muslim Hatred, Tell MAMA, Remembering Srebrenica—are all initiatives that I spearheaded in government, and which I am grateful are still being run by the Government. At what point, however, are we going to step this up and face down the awful scourge of Islamophobia—which, unfortunately, is increasing year by year?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I applaud the courageous words of my noble friend and her statement that she will not be intimidated. She will know better than I do that many of the Muslim community are being intimidated by this leaflet when it arrives; they do not know where it came from or how the sender got their address. That is why there is a serious police investigation to find the source of the leaflets, and I urge anybody who receives one to report it and, as my noble friend suggested, to contact Tell MAMA.

The Government condemn the content of these letters. As I said in the Statement, it is abhorrent and has no place in a decent society. I know that the Prime Minister, who as Home Secretary took a number of initiatives in partnership with my noble friend, will want to reflect on the exchanges in the other place yesterday and today to see whether we can build on some of the other initiatives that my noble friend referred to and whether there is further action that we can take in order to counter hate crime in this country today.