Hate Crime Law: Misogyny

Debate between Tony Vaughan and Olivia Bailey

Monday 7th September 2026 Westminster Hall

[Tony Vaughan (Folkestone and Hythe) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered e-petition 746640 relating to crimes motivated by misogyny and hate crime law.

It is always a privilege to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward.

In February, Amara Relf wrote an excellent blog post called “Students need misogyny to be recognised as a hate crime”. This is how the post starts:

“When we began our roles as sabbatical officers, one priority was clear: improving student safety. Very quickly, it became apparent that while serious sexual offences can carry severe sentences, the everyday behaviours that shape women’s lives, catcalling, groping, sexually suggestive comments, and harassment, are too often minimised, overlooked, or left entirely unpunished.

Sexual harassment, as its own category, is rarely criminalised in practice. As a result, many students are left asking a difficult question: why report something when it feels unlikely that anything will be done?”

This lack of consequence not only enables harmful behaviour but also actively discourages reporting. This is why we—Lily, Amara, and Holly—have launched a petition calling for misogyny to be recognised as a hate crime.”

I thank Amara, Lily and Holly for the petition, which has attracted 114,927 signatures, including 123 from my own constituency. Amara and her colleagues also commissioned a survey among Russell Group universities that found that 67% of students would be more likely to report their experiences if misogyny were treated as a hate crime. Amara argues that

“Legal change alone won’t shift deeply ingrained attitudes—but without it, cultural change becomes even harder to achieve.”

The ingrained attitudes that the petitioner is talking about are reflected in the fact that, according to the Office for National Statistics, 23% of women aged 16 to 24, and 16% of those aged 25 to 34, have reported experiencing some form of sexual harassment in the previous year. That is compared with around 5% of women aged 35 and older. It is clear that younger women are bearing the brunt of this sexual harassment epidemic.

The petitioner is right that the law needs to change. Take the criminal offence of harassment, which is, broadly, unwanted conduct that causes a person harassment, alarm or distress. If the perpetrator of that harassment is motivated by hostility to the victim’s religion, it is a statutory aggravating factor, which in practice means the offender’s sentence is more severe. But if the perpetrator is motivated instead by hostility to the victim’s sex or gender, that is not currently an aggravating factor. That is, in my view, wrong.

Misogyny is not currently a centrally monitored hate crime characteristic in England and Wales, so data is not currently collected about offending with a misogynistic element specifically. I am pleased to say that we are seeing positive change with this Labour Government. Following an amendment tabled to the Crime and Policing Bill—now the Crime and Policing Act 2026—by my hon. Friend the Member for North Warwickshire and Bedworth (Rachel Taylor), the Minister agreed to bring forward a Government amendment in the Lords. The resulting clause on aggravated offences is now section 145 of the Act. That will extend the racially and religiously aggravated offences in sections 29 to 32 of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, which includes offences like assault, harassment and criminal damage, to also cover hostility based on sex, disability, sexual orientation and transgender identity. That means that the higher maximum penalties already available for race and religion are now available in those cases too.

I strongly support that change because tackling misogyny needs to be embedded in the Government’s approach to hate crime more generally. I also support it so that hostility based on misogyny is centrally recorded, and we can finally have a true national picture of the scale of this problem.

The petitioner has also called for tougher laws against online abuse and to tackle anti-feminist hate groups that target and radicalise young people online. As she said in her article,

“For students, the online dimension is inescapable—group chats where women are rated and degraded, anonymous platforms where harassment flourishes, social media pile-ons. The algorithmically-driven spread of ‘manosphere’ content means that young men are being radicalised into misogynistic worldviews at scale, and women students are experiencing the consequences in their seminars, their societies, and their relationships.”

Last October, Ofcom issued guidance to tech firms requesting that online platforms introduce measures, such as abusability testing, time-outs for repeat offenders, easier mass-blocking tools and the demonetisation of misogynistic content. I support those measures and they all sound good in theory, but the fact that the guidance is voluntary means that it is unclear how platforms will be forced to act. As the End Violence Against Women Coalition told the Women and Equalities Committee last year, nothing less than a binding violence against women and girls code of practice is required for us to stand a chance of turning the tide against the wave of online misogyny that we are seeing.

There is also the question of the capacity of the criminal justice system to respond sensitively and effectively to victims who are brave enough to raise a complaint. The Equality and Human Rights Commission tracker notes that there is currently no compulsory training for existing police officers on responding to rape and sexual offences; only new recruits are covered. The UN Committee against Torture specifically recommended that the UK provide mandatory training on the prosecution of gender-based violence to all justice officials and law enforcement personnel, not just new recruits. Extending mandatory refresher and specialist training to serving officers would close that gap.

Women’s Aid has also called for specialist domestic abuse training to be provided to all judges, not just those in jurisdictions that frequently see VAWG cases. My constituency caseload indicates that tackling domestic abuse and violence against women presents system-level challenges. I pay tribute to brilliant local organisations, such as Rising Sun domestic violence and abuse service, Home-Start Shepway and Beech House, as well as the local police force for everything it does to support victims in our community.

There is always further that we can go, and the need for better specialist training is underlined by evidence given to the Women and Equalities Committee last year suggesting that police and safeguarding professionals often do not recognise manosphere-linked misogyny or incel ideology as a warning sign in the same way that they would with other radicalisation indicators. Training gaps often mean that genuinely concerning behaviours do not meet thresholds for intervention, such as through the Prevent programme, because they are misogynistic rather than linked to a proscribed organisation.

The petitioner is right to hope that stronger criminal laws, stronger awareness among criminal justice and safeguarding professionals, stronger support for victims and stronger online protections may help and are needed to help turn the tide of misogyny, but that is a whole-of-society effort that requires everyone, particularly men, to demonstrate what healthy attitudes to women look like.

The petitioner has made a compelling case: misogyny constrains women’s daily freedom, safety and willingness to participate fully in education, work and public life. I welcome the important progress made through section 145 of the Crime and Policing Act, but legislation must be matched by properly trained police, prosecutors, safeguarding professionals and judges; by meaningful support for those who come forward; and by enforceable action by online platforms against the abuse and radicalisation they too often enable.

We cannot wait until hatred escalates into the most serious offences before we act. We must recognise misogyny where it is present, challenge it wherever it appears and make it clear to every woman and girl that the law is on her side. I hope the Minister will set out how the Government will build on that important legislative framework so that women and girls, including students in Folkestone, Hythe and Romney Marsh, can live, study and participate in a public life—free from harassment, intimidation and misogynistic abuse.

[Olivia Bailey (Reading West and Mid Berkshire) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. and learned Friend for making an excellent speech, which I agree with wholeheartedly. Before he finishes, does he agree that it is also important for us to reflect on the intersectional nature of hate crime? Women will experience hate crime for lots of different reasons, including being a woman who is gay or a woman who is black, Asian or minority ethnic. Would he say a little about that and its importance?

[Tony Vaughan]

I defer to my hon. Friend and pay tribute to the work that she has done in this area over many years. It is important that she has raised that issue, because it is something that the petitioners wrote about in the article that led to the petition and this debate.

The way that discrimination and prejudice operate is not compartmentalised by protected characteristics in the Equality Act 2010. Quite often, a number of those characteristics are present at the same time. It is important that we have a system that understands that first and foremost, so that we can ensure that the way that victims are dealt with actually takes account of those different needs. We will not necessarily treat everyone the same, but we will treat them in the way that they need to be treated, having regard to their protected characteristics. I thank my hon. Friend for raising that point.

In her summing up speech, will the Minister address some particular questions? First, when will section 145 of the 2026 Act be commenced? I understand it is not yet in force. Secondly, what assessment have the Government made of the merits of introducing sex as an aggravating factor in respect of all offending, not just offences under the Crime and Disorder Act, which is the ask of the petitioners? Finally, do the Government have any plans to require existing police officers to undergo training on gender-based violence, given that it is currently only for those being brought into the system? I look forward to hearing from her.