Brexit: Hate Crimes

Lord Blair of Boughton Excerpts

Thursday 19th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

The noble Lord raises a very important point, which is that it was not Brexit per se that was the cause of this hatred but Brexit was used as an occasion to promote prejudice and hatred. The Government have done many things since 2010 to try to tackle this. I mentioned the hate crime action plan that the Home Secretary produced upon becoming Home Secretary. We have made changes to legislation that offer further protection for transgender and disabled people, and those have led to the first convictions for the offence of stirring up hatred on grounds of sexual orientation. We have also improved the police recording of hate crime. Forces now capture data on all five of the monitored hate crime strands. We have also recently launched a funding scheme to help protect places of worship from hate crime and to tackle hate crime at a local level.

[Lord Blair of Boughton (CB)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that drawing the line between hate crime and the protection of free speech is one of the most difficult jobs that the police service has to do? In the event of difficulties following this judgment, will she ask the Home Secretary to support police action, perhaps slightly more quickly than the Lord Chancellor did on the last occasion?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I agree with the noble Lord that there is a distinction. How the police operate is of course up to the police, but we certainly support them.