Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what data his Department holds on the volume of anti-Semitic and other hate material available (a) online, (b) on Twitter and (c) on Facebook.

Incidences of illegal hate crime online should be reported to the police who are supported by third party organisations such as the Community Security Trust. National statistics on hate crime are published annually. In addition, figures produced by the National Police Chiefs’ Council provide a breakdown of police recorded religious hate crimes and show that in 2015/16, 786 anti-Semitic hate crimes were recorded by police forces in England, Wales and Northern Ireland: http://www.report-it.org.uk/files/faith_hate_crime_true_vision_2015-16_v2.pdf Data is not available to show how many of these offences were committed online.

As part of the Government’s Hate Crime Action Plan, officials from across Whitehall are working with academics who are analysing social media platforms to better understand the nature and extent of the harm caused by online hate crime and the effectiveness of counter-narrative measures.