Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to identify and implement future crime prevention measures in relation to race hate crime.

The Coalition government takes all forms of hate crime very seriously. The Government’s hate crime action plan brings together the activities of government departments to: prevent hate crime by challenging the attitudes and behaviours that foster hatred; increase the reporting of hate crime by building victims’ confidence to come forward and seek justice, ensuring the right support is available when they do, and; work across the criminal justice system to improve the operational response to hate crime.

Police forces in England, Wales and Northern Ireland have recently been issued with new guidance for dealing with hate crimes, which includes advice for dealing with incidents and how to monitor and deal with community tensions.

Data published on 16 October showed a 5% increase in hate crime recorded by the police in the last year with increases across all five of the monitored hate crime strands. The government is encouraged that more victims are coming forward and that the police are improving the way they identify hate crime.

The government has also worked with organisations, including Show Racism the Red Card, the Anne Frank Trust and the Jewish Museum to raise awareness of prejudice with children and young people, in order to prevent hate crime from happening in the first place.