Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent steps her Department has taken to help prevent hate crime against disabled people.

Hate crime is a scourge on communities across the country. It does not reflect the values of modern Britain.

All forms of hate crime, including disability hate crime, are completely unacceptable. We expect the police to fully investigate these hateful attacks and make sure the cowards who commit them feel the full force of the law.

Our absolute priority is to get more police onto our streets, cut crime, protect the public and bring more criminals to justice. We are supporting the police by providing them with the resources they need, including recruiting 20,000 extra police officers.

To tackle online hate crime, including disability hate crime, we fund a National Online Hate Crime Hub, which is a central police capability designed to support forces in dealing with online hate crime. The hub includes a public reporting portal and provides expert advice to forces to support them in investigating these offences.

The Home Office collects and publishes data on the proportion of disability hate crime offences which resulted in a charge or summons for selected offence groups in an annual statistical bulletin on hate crime. Data for 2021/22 can be found in Figure 2.8 of the publication, available here: Hate crime, England and Wales, 2021 to 2022 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).

Data for previous years can be found in the respective annual publications.