Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment he has made of the implications for his policies of the risk of the far right and racists targeting (a) Poplar and Limehouse constituency and (b) other diverse areas; and what steps he is taking to protect communities from hate (i) crimes and (ii) speech.

We have a robust legislative framework in place to respond to hate crimes which target race and religion and expect the police to fully investigate these appalling offences and work with the Crown Prosecution Service to ensure perpetrators are brought to justice. Our 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. Part of this necessitates police recruitment and training - there are now over 149,000 officers in England and Wales, which is higher than the previous peak in March 2010 before the Police Uplift Programme. Funding for the Metropolitan Police Service will be up to £3.5bn in 2024/25, an increase of up to £125.8m when compared to 2023/24. As of 30 September 2023, the Metropolitan Police Service has over 35,000 officers (35,006).

We are committed to protecting all communities from hate crime. In 2023/24, the Home Office is providing up to £50.9 million to protect faith communities. This includes £18 million through the Jewish Community Protective Security Grant, £29.4 million through the new Protective Security for Mosques scheme and a scheme for Muslim faith schools, and £3.5 million for the places of worship of other (non-Muslim and non-Jewish) faiths.

The Government continues to fund True Vision, an online hate crime reporting portal designed so that victims of all forms of hate crime do not have to visit a police station to report. We also fund the National Online Hate Crime Hub, a central capability designed to provide expert advice to support individual local police forces in dealing with online hate crime.