Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Home Affairs, what assessment she has made of trends in the level of hate crime during the covid-19 outbreak.

In March, April and May, the level of racially and religiously aggravated offences in 2020 was lower than the previous year. In April the number of offences was down almost a quarter (24%) on the same month in 2019. However, the number of racially or religiously aggravated offences in June 2020 was a third higher (34%) than in June 2019 and remained high in July. More information can be found online at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/hate-crime-england-and-wales-2019-to-2020/hate-crime-england-and-wales-2019-to-2020

These offences are completely unacceptable and the UK has a robust legislative framework to respond to them.

The Home Office is working closely with the National Police Chief’s Council to ensure that all police forces are providing reassurance to affected communities and encouraging hate crime reporting during the pandemic.