Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Home Secretary, what assessment she has made of the level of bullying reported against disabled people.

The Government is very clear that bullying is unwanted and offensive behaviour and should not be tolerated in any sector of our society. There is no doubt that bullying can be detrimental to the health and well-being of any person who experiences it.

Although the very nature of bullying means that it is often a very subjective term, which makes it hard to legislate for, the harassment provisions of the Equality Act 2010 make it clear that any ‘unwanted or prohibited conduct’ related to a protected characteristic (including disability), which violates an individual’s dignity or creates an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment for them, is unlawful. Bullying behaviours may also, in some circumstances, be proscribed by the victimisation provisions of the Act.

The Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS) record the number of calls they receive about harassment and victimisation of disabled people and have reported that, between 1 October 2016, when the current EASS contract started, and 31 October 2017 there were 590 contacts from disabled people about harassment or victimisation, out of a total of 11,817 disability-related calls.

In 2016/17 5,558 disability hate crimes were recorded by the police. Not all incidents of bullying will be classed as hate crimes or even reported to the police; however, there may be some instances that escalate to become disability hate crimes.