Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps he is taking to help tackle the causes of transphobic hate crimes.

This Government is clear that all forms of hate crime are completely unacceptable, and we have a robust legislative framework to respond to hate crimes which target transgender identity, race, religion, sexual orientation, and disability. We expect the police fully to investigate these abhorrent offences and make sure those who commit them feel the full force of the law.

Whilst part of the increase in transgender hate crime may be due to a genuine rise, the biggest driver is likely to be general improvements in police recording. The police are also better at identifying whether a crime is a hate crime, along with increased victim willingness to come forward. This is positive and reflects the hard work that has gone in to ensuring that police can target their resources, understand the scale of the challenge and ensure that victims get the support they need.

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. This has included the recruitment of 20,000 additional police officers by March 2023.

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 continue to fund the National Online Hate Crime Hub, a central capability designed to support individual local police forces in dealing with online hate crime. The Hub provides expert advice to police forces to support them in investigating these despicable offences.

The Government is providing over £3m of funding, between 10 August 2021 and 31 March 2024, to five anti-bullying organisations to support schools to tackle bullying. This includes projects targeting bullying of particular groups, such as those who are victims of hate-related bullying and homophobic, biphobic and transphobic based bullying. The providers are the Anti-Bullying Alliance, Diversity Role Models, EqualiTeach, Anne Frank Trust and the Diana Award.