Matthew Offord
Main Page: Matthew Offord (Conservative - Hendon)Department Debates - View all Matthew Offord's debates with the Home Office
(6 years, 9 months ago)
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Victoria Atkins
I thank the hon. and learned Lady for her question and, indeed, for her contribution in relation to what is happening in Scotland. We very much look at how we tackle hate crime, particularly through our hate crime action plan, which was published in 2016 and will be refreshed this year. Its range of actions include: funding for security for places of worship; the disaggregation of religion-based hate crime data; taking further action in relation to education so that teachers can have sometimes difficult conversations with their students about beliefs and words; and funding programmes through the Anne Frank Trust and Streetwise. We are determined to ensure that our action in relation to hate crime is up to date and current.
Dr Matthew Offord (Hendon) (Con)
As someone who visited a Syrian refugee camp in Malatya in Turkey over the weekend, I find it a little offensive that a Labour Member has said that no Conservative Minister had ever actually condemned any kind of anti-Muslim extremism. Is the Minister aware that her equivalent at the Department for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi), publicly rebuked the President of the United States for retweeting certain comments and invited him to visit Muslim communities in the United Kingdom?
Victoria Atkins
I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend. I must say that I was not sure whether I had heard the hon. Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi) correctly. As I have said, the record of both the Prime Minister and Cabinet Ministers on the issue of tackling anti-Muslim sentiments is pretty clear. It may be that the hon. Lady can clarify her remarks at a later stage.