Non-Crime Hate Incidents

Question

Asked by

To ask His Majesty’s Government, following the decision of police forces to stop investigating non-crime hate incidents, whether they plan to abolish them altogether.

The College of Policing and the National Police Chiefs’ Council are currently undertaking a review of non-crime hate incidents, working closely with the Home Office. The Government look forward to receiving the review’s final recommendations shortly and will decide future policy following consideration.

I thank the Minister for that Answer. He may not be aware that in 2023 I was charged with a non-crime hate incident. Thanks to my noble friend Lord Young of Acton, who is in his place, and the Free Speech Union, we managed to fight it and get it dropped, but, by some estimates from Policy Exchange and others, some 60,000 hours of police time are used every year in investigating these, and innocent men and women are criminalised. My main concern is that, from Questions that I have tabled, neither the Home Office nor police forces can tell us whether any of this has led to any serious crimes being solved or prevented. Is it not time for the Minister to abolish these altogether?

As I have indicated to the noble Baroness, we are awaiting the report, and it is fair, if we have commissioned a report, that we wait to see its recommendations. However, an interim report in October of this year said that non-crime hate incidents were not fit for purpose. Her noble friend Lord Herbert, who is the chair of the College of Policing, has reported to this House on the recommendations to date, and we will have those shortly. I hope I can reassure the noble Baroness that non-crime hate incidents do not appear on basic or standard DBS checks, so she is not criminalised by her close proximity to a non-crime hate incident on her own accord.

My Lords, non-crime hate incidents, even if they are not investigated but recorded, are a good way of assessing the rising levels of hatred in society. For example, increasing levels of anti-social behaviour appear to be linked to hate crime. Can the Minister tell us whether mechanisms are in place to show what levels of anti-social behaviour are linked to hate crime, and what levels of anti-social behaviour are linked to anti-Muslim hate? I am happy to have that information in writing if he does not have it to hand.

The noble Baroness is right that one of the purposes of non-crime hate incident assessments is to assess whether there are potential problems or challenges in a particular area. Last year, for example, 44% of religious hate crime offences targeted Muslims, while 24% targeted Jewish people, and there were 82,490 race hate crime offences. That is useful information, but the questions are: what do we do about non-crime hate incidents generally? Should we record them? Do we follow them up? Do they lead to prosecution? Are they a good use of police time? However, the evidence gathered by some of that information is valuable, which is why the College of Policing and the police chiefs’ council are making a genuine assessment, having already said that the non-crime hate incident regime is not fit for purpose.

My Lords, it will be a sad day when police stop investigating non-crime hate incidents. In the last 10 years, I stood for Parliament twice, and I was the victim of such incidents both times. Non-crime hate is an early warning sign of what is happening in our society so that police and the politicians can keep an eye on it. Does my noble friend the Minister agree?

Again, there are robust mechanisms in place to deal with harassment, racial prejudice and other forms of harassing and abusive and threatening behaviour. The key element of a non-crime hate incident is that it does not reach a threshold of a crime incident but is, in essence, a method of collecting information. For example, in my noble friend’s case, if there were persistent and regular non-crime hate approaches that did not reach that threshold, it might well indicate to the police that there were other aspects of community cohesion behaviour they needed to investigate. The review will decide what happens in terms of police activity following up on a range of matters, and that is what we are awaiting shortly with some interest.

My Lords, inspections by HMIC have found that about one-quarter of non-crime hate incidents are recorded incorrectly, with many people wrongly included. Following several reviews and repeated government assurances, can the Minister give an undertaking that the Government will finally establish a clear and publicly accessible appeals mechanism for individuals who believe they have been wrongly recorded as being involved in such incidents?

I am grateful for that question from the noble Baroness. The issue is that non-crime hate incidents are not currently fit for purpose. That includes a range of mechanisms relating to how the police interpret that, what they do with the information and indeed whether any information is collected incorrectly. I would love to give an answer today, but it is important that we listen and work with the police on the review they have commissioned. That will be with me shortly and, when it is, we will be able to come to some definitive conclusions and put a regime in place that meets the noble Baroness’s objective of assessing anti-social behaviour and racial concerns, as my noble friend has mentioned, but does so in a way that does not lead to mistakes, does not lead to false use by the police and is not a waste of police time in collecting that information.

My Lords, I hear what the Minister says, but, to pick up on the points made by my noble friend Lady Maclean of Redditch, non-crime hate incidents are just one of the instruments used by the police to investigate online speech. Open-ended and subjective language in legislation such as the Public Order Act 1998 and the Communications Act 2003, and unclear guidance, are also used to chill free speech. Given the public’s view that crime is on the rise, do the Government not agree that legislative changes need to be made, and that guidance and leadership need to be crystal-clear that the police should stop policing online speech and start solving real-world crimes that have a genuine effect on people’s lives?

The noble Lord has a point. Guidance for these incidents was put in place by his Government in 2023, and it is that guidance that has proved ineffective and led to the review. We are looking at the framework for this. We have commissioned the College of Policing to look at it, as well as the police, who have to deal with this matter and who themselves have said that the regime is not fit for purpose. We hope then to be able to update the guidance, depending on what the police and the College of Policing come forward with.

I challenge the noble Lord’s contention that crime is rising. In many areas, crime is falling; murder rates in London are at their lowest levels for many months. Crime is falling generally, and the work that we are doing to put extra police on the ground will help improve community support and community action on crime. However, we will wait for the review and report back to the House in due course.

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Young, and I, have tabled an amendment to the Crime and Policing Bill to try to remove non-crime hate incidents. I understand why the Minister has to give the reply that he gives—because a review is ongoing and the Government do not want to get trapped by it—but the danger is that we end up with an inconsistent approach, even if it is improved. At the moment, we have a situation where the Metropolitan Police is no longer investigating non-crime hate incidents, yet 42 forces are. Is there not a risk that following the review we will end up with more inconsistency, not less, when people are crying out for this to be resolved?

The Metropolitan Police has said that it will still record information collected from non-crime hate incidents, which is in line with the code of practice introduced by the previous Government in 2023. Ministers decide on issues, but we have commissioned a review of the 2023 guidance which is being undertaken by former colleagues of the noble Lord at a senior level in the police: the National Police Chiefs’ Council and the College of Policing. It is important that we receive their review and then we can determine whether we agree with the recommendations. Ministers decide, but we have commissioned a review, and it is important that we allow it to report.

My Lords, over the past two years, we have seen levels of antisemitism reach new highs, and while some antisemitic hate speech reaches the criminal threshold, it can also be sub-criminal. Does the Minister agree with me and organisations such as the Antisemitism Policy Trust that documenting such incidents is central to building an intelligence picture of hate hotspots and that a simple renaming of these incidents to “intelligence reports” would help a great deal?

It is an important use of non-crime hate incidents. As I said earlier, there have been 82,490 race hate crimes, 7,164 religious hate crimes and a range of other offences falling within that. One reason why it is helpful is that it guides where other government resources can go, such as the £70.9 million available to protect faith communities, including, regarding the issue that my noble friend mentioned, the £18 million to the Jewish community protective security grant. It has an important function, but we have to assess it in the light of the use of police time, which is what this review is about. However, my noble friend’s point was very well made, as was that of the noble Baroness, that it helps secure an intelligence picture.