Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what criteria are used by Crime Registrars to determine whether hate incidents meet the criminal threshold.

The Home Office Counting Rules (HOCR) for recorded crime requires that every force in England and Wales must have a Force Crime Registrar (FCR) who has attended a College of Policing training course and been accredited as professionally competent.

The FCR is responsible for overseeing the correct application of the National Crime Recording Standards within their force which stipulate that:

An incident will be recorded as a crime for ‘victim related offences’ if, on the balance of probability:

(a) the circumstances of the victims’ report amount to a crime defined by law (the police will determine this, based on their knowledge of the law and the HOCR); and

(b) there is no credible evidence to the contrary immediately available.

Regarding hate crimes, these are defined as "any criminal offence which is perceived by the victim or any other person, to be motivated by hostility or prejudice based on a person's race or perceived race; religion or perceived religion; sexual orientation or perceived sexual orientation; disability or perceived disability and any crime motivated by hostility or prejudice against a person who is transgender or perceived to be transgender."

The FCR is the final arbiter within each force in relation to any crime recording decisions and in many forces their role extends to the recording of non-crime hate incidents.

The College of Policing publishes operational guidance known as ‘Authorised Professional Practice’ (APP) for the police, including FCRs, on how to deal with many different types of crimes or incidents. In June 2023, the College updated its APP relating specifically to non-crime hate incidents (NCHIs) to align with the previous Government’s statutory code of practice.