Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Mann Excerpts

Monday 23rd January 2017 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Policing and the Fire Service (Brandon Lewis)]

My hon. Friend has made a good point about the excellent work that is being done by Chief Constable Simon Cole and his team in Leicestershire. We are working to ensure that we achieve a fair, transparent review funding formula, and that all the chief constables and the police and crime commissioners feed into it. I assure my hon. Friend that we will deliver that work as quickly as we can.

[John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)]

T6. Waffle, Mr Speaker—waffle is all that we get in answer to questions about dealing with hate crime on Facebook and Twitter and on the internet. If Germany can fine these companies half a million pounds every time they fail to take down hate speech posts within 24 hours, why can we not also take practical action to hold them to account for their failure to deal with hate speech?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Sarah Newton)]

The hon. Gentleman has made a very important point. Hate crime has no place whatsoever in our society. It destroys communities and people’s lives, and we are taking every possible action against it. We have the strongest legislative framework in the world, and that includes working with internet providers. I can absolutely assure the hon. Gentleman that we have agreements with internet providers, and that when hate crime is identified, they will take the horrendous stuff down.