Non-crime Hate Incidents

Lord Brennan of Canton Excerpts

Monday 27th October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord, who brings great experience to this area. Parliament has had a view on this matter—it passed the codification of non-crime hate incidents in legislation in 2023 under the Government that I was not party to, not a supporter of and not a member of. That is why the police have the responsibilities that they currently have. The important point for the noble Lord is that this Government came in in July 2024, realised there were some challenges in the system, had representations from across this House and the House of Commons, and ordered a review. That review is being undertaken by the National Police Chiefs’ Council. It commenced in January; it will be finished very shortly, and there will be an interim response. Then we can decide whether we wish to take any action on those recommendations as they affect individual police officers and in terms of whether there are any policy implications for the Government.

[Lord Brennan of Canton (Lab)]

My Lords, the review is extremely welcome, and I welcome my noble friend’s remarks in relation to it. Would it also be helpful, on these kinds of issues, if politicians in both Houses of this place avoided making comments referring to people’s race, in particular the recent comments about advertisements on television?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

It is important that we condemn the comments that were made about adverts on television. We are a multicultural society. It is quite right and proper that individuals from all parts of our society appear on television, because they are both consumers and producers of goods and contributors to society, so I have no problem in supporting my noble friend on that point. The key question on non-crime hate incidents, and this is where we stand, is the extent to which we use that intelligence reporting mechanism to gather intelligence about potential trends in difficult areas—maybe down to the micro level of a ward—versus the extent to which we take further action on those issues in a criminal context. That is what the review that the noble Lord, Lord Herbert, a member of the Conservative Party and chair of the College of Policing, is undertaking with the National Police Chiefs’ Council is looking at. I am expecting a report in extremely short order.