Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps he is taking to tackle online hate crime.

The newly published Hate Crime Action Plan refresh sets out the Govern-ment’s plan to tackle hate crime, including how we will address online hate crime. These include the publication – by the Home Office and Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) – of a White Paper that sets out proposals for future legislation around online harms, including hate crime. We will be supporting the upcoming review of hate crime legislation by the Law Commission, along with their current review of online abusive commu-nications.

We are also working directly with social media companies to support their ef-forts; engaging internationally to strengthen our approach; and funding the National Police Chiefs’ Council for the National Online Hate Crime Hub, which uses specially trained staff to investigate and action reports.