Disability Hate Crime

Debate between Kate Green and Mike Crockart

Wednesday 23rd November 2011 Westminster Hall

[Mike Crockart (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

I start by adding my congratulations to the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) on securing the debate. I recognise that she has long been a champion on the issue. As someone who sat on the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill Committee, I welcome the Government’s announcement that they will table amendments in the House of Lords to offer disabled victims of crime the same protection as those who are targeted because of their race, religion or sexual orientation. The provisions were pushed for by the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston and by my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard).

Although I am particularly pleased to learn that the Government will be tabling those amendments, I hope that they will seek to build on experience north of the border. In 2010, Scotland became the first country in Europe to have specific disability hate crime legislation on its statute book. The Offences (Aggravation by Prejudice) (Scotland) Act 2009 makes provision for statutory aggravations that can be attached to offences motivated by prejudice towards disabled or lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, and requires courts to say what impact, if any, those aggravating factors have had on sentencing.

In Scotland, any criminal offence that is partly or wholly motivated by prejudice on such grounds is to be dealt with as a hate crime all the way through the system. For example, the offence could be assault, vandalism, verbal threats, abuse that could be charged as breach of the peace, or any other crime. If the person committing the offence uses disability-prejudiced language, or if there is any other evidence of a prejudiced motive, that makes it a hate crime. If anyone witnessing a crime thinks it was a hate crime, the police must record it as a hate incident. If there is any evidence of a hate motive—for example, prejudiced language—it will be charged as a hate crime. If the person charged is found guilty, the hate motive will be taken into account in sentencing, and the court must say publicly what difference the hate motive made to the sentence.

[Kate Green]

It is interesting to hear about the experience in Scotland, from which I am sure we can learn. I was very interested in what the hon. Gentleman said—that if anyone identifies the crime as a hate crime it must be treated as a hate crime. Is it not also important to recognise that although victims themselves often specifically exclude the possibility that it was a hate crime, that in itself should not be taken at face value, because there may be all sorts of pressures on them not to identify it as such?

[Mike Crockart]

I absolutely agree. In fact, the hon. Lady’s intervention feeds very nicely into my next point. Twenty years ago, when I was going through basic training as a police officer, racial incidents were going through the self-same process. When someone was the target of a racial incident and did not necessarily feel that it was one, the fact that someone else had witnessed the incident was sufficient to make it a racial incident. That was the test that I was taught to use 20 years ago. I have to admit that at the time it felt excessive, but it was only thus that such crimes and incidents became generally unacceptable. In that way, there was a move to general agreement that much of the racist language of the ’70s and ’80s, which was tolerated by the silent majority, was derisive and abusive. Such a move is required in attitudes to disability hate crime, and is massively overdue. I trust that the Minister will be able to assure us that the amendments that the Government have now promised to table in the Lords will go further and build on the experience in Scotland, affording a similar level of protection in England and Wales.

The announcement from the Government signals recognition, welcome to us all, of the need to tackle those despicable crimes. It is also heartening for me to help push forward the agenda that my predecessor in Edinburgh West worked on in the previous Parliament. Responding to a parliamentary question tabled by my predecessor, John Barrett, in April 2008, the then Home Office Minister, the hon. Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker) said:

“The Home Office is responsible for the police recorded statistics. Statistics are collected on the number of racially or religiously aggravated offences but no information is available on those offences which are specifically ‘disability hate’ crimes.”—[Official Report, 29 April 2008; Vol. 475, c. 330W.]

I welcome what the Government have already done, specifically the coalition commitment to improve the recording of such crimes. Since April 2011, all police forces now report hate crimes centrally. Published data from the Association of Chief Police Officers show increases in the number of disability hate crimes reported in 2010—a 21.3% increase on the recorded figures in 2009. This must be one of the few areas where we can welcome a large increase in reported crime, as it shows that the push for people to report the crimes is having an effect.

I await the promised hate crime action plan and the Government response to the Equality and Human Rights Commission inquiry, but it is positive that the issue is finally receiving the attention that it deserves, although of course it is a shame that this or any Government have to tackle it at all. Such horrific cases as the killings of Brent Martin, Steven Hoskin or Fiona Pilkington should assault our consciousness as a decent society and daily remind us how serious the situation can become if left unchecked. As the Equality and Human Rights Commission noted in its “Hidden in plain sight” inquiry, we need to look at preventive strategies alongside any legislative changes, ensuring that we nip in the bud such attitudes and behaviours before they escalate. We also need to address the wider geographical, social and economic factors, identified in the Commission’s research, that can leave disabled people and others at greater risk.

A change of attitude in this country is vital. After all, it is not disabled people who create their oppression, it is others. As previously said, and as Sir Ken Macdonald so eloquently argued in one of his final speeches as Director of Public Prosecutions, we must overcome a prevailing assumption that disabled people’s intrinsic vulnerability explains the risk that they face, an assumption unsupported by evidence. At best, that had led to protectionism, constraining rather than expanding the individual freedom and opportunity that greater safety and security should provide. Only by extending the same expectations of safety and security to disabled people as to everyone else can we truly address the deficits in our current approach and wake up to the need to act. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s comments on those points as well.

I am a member of the Joint Committee on Human Rights. We are currently finishing an inquiry into independent living, which has looked at various aspects such as access to welfare, housing and employment and the differences in provision between different local authorities and nations. We have even had the Minister along recently to answer various questions about Government policy. However, I now realise that we have omitted investigation of a basic element. A constituent part of ensuring access to independent living is laid out in article 3 of the universal declaration of human rights:

“Everyone has the right to life, liberty and”—

crucially—“security of person.” What is clear from many of the dreadful examples that we have heard today is that that security is put at risk daily by the criminal acts of a few, which are unfortunately tolerated by many more.

As a member of the JCHR, I have also taken note of the EHRC’s endorsement of the mechanisms of the Human Rights Act 1998, which it says are essential for the protection of human rights in the United Kingdom. The EHRC also argues that the existing law is well crafted to balance Britain’s international obligations with its constitutional conventions. In particular, the existing Act preserves parliamentary sovereignty and the role of British judges in interpreting the legislation, and has allowed many people to exercise their basic rights without the time and expense of taking a case to the European Court of Human Rights. I hope that the Minister can reassure me and other members of the Joint Committee that any revision of the Human Rights Act will not change that crucial lifeline for those who are disabled.

In conclusion, I welcome the issue finally receiving the attention it deserves. I await further concrete steps by the Government to deal with this hidden crime.