Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps have been taken by the Government in response to the recommendation in paragraph 6.6 of the Council of Europe Resolution 2036 (2015) on combatting and preventing cases of violence, discrimination and intolerance and on carrying out effective investigations in order to avoid any sense of impunity among the perpetrators.

The Government takes all forms of hate crime seriously including hate crime perpetrated against Christians. 'Action against Hate' the UK Government's plan for tackling hate crime specifically mentions anti-Christian Hate Crime and the work we are doing to prevent attacks against all places of worship including churches. We are supporting work through the police online reporting mechanism True Vision to encourage victims of anti-Christian hate crime to report incidents to the police. We would expect all incidents of hate crime to be investigated effectively and perpetrators brought to justice. We also support a number of projects in schools including the Anne Frank Trust which use Anne’s diary to educate young people about all forms of prejudice and intolerance.