Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to the Law Commission report Hate crime laws: Final report, HC 942, published in December 2021, if he will implement the recommendations in that report that all (a) anti-LGBT+ (b) and disability hate crimes be treated as aggravated offences.

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 ensure perpetrators are brought to justice.

The Government is pleased to see the overall reduction in police-recorded hate crime in the year ending March 2023, including a 6% reduction in sexual orientation hate crimes. Whilst an 11% increase in transgender hate crime was seen, and this may partly be due to a genuine rise, the biggest driver is likely to be general improvements in police recording along with increased victim willingness to come forward.

We are supporting the police by providing them with the resources they need. Part of this necessitates police recruitment and training – that is why we have the highest number of police officers on record in England and Wales.

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.

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 hate-related bullying and homophobic, biphobic and transphobic based bullying.

We are grateful for the detailed consideration the Law Commission has given to its review of hate crime laws. In April 2023, the Government published a response to Recommendation 8 on misogyny as a hate crime and will respond to the remaining recommendations in due course.