Baroness Burt of Solihull
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Non-crime Hate Incidents
Baroness Burt of Solihull Excerpts(2 days, 2 hours ago)
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Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
The short answer is no. The longer answer is we will wait for the review to see what action we will take. Again, I remind the noble Lord that the reason we are in this position in the first place is legislation that codified non-crime hate incidents passed by his Government.
Baroness Burt of Solihull (LD)
Does the Minister agree that care should be taken not to conflate crimes with non-crime hate incidents, and that this is particularly important in media reporting?
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
The noble Baroness makes a very sensible point. Ultimately, the bottom line is that the Government believe that we should focus on real crime as a priority. That is why we are putting in 13,000 new police officers, police community support officers and special constables over the next few years, and it is why we have asked for the review of non-crime hate incidents. But in reviewing those issues, we should not lose sight of the importance of intelligence-led information-gathering, as the Metropolitan Police has said.