Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps his Department is taking to tackle the rise in (a) anti-Semitic and (b) Islamophobic hate crime in the UK as a result of the Israel-Palestine conflict.

There is no place in our society for the shocking rise of Antisemitic and Islamophobic incidents that have been seen as a result of the conflict. We are absolutely clear that this is unacceptable, and we have a zero-tolerance approach to hate crime against any and all communities.

This Government has a strong record on tackling hate crime against religious communities; following our encouragement, we have seen nearly 3 quarters of local authorities and 91 higher education providers adopt the IHRA definition of antisemitism and take an important step to combatting this hatred.

We have also taken steps in protecting the Muslim communities; providing over £5 million in the last 5 years to the Places of Worship protective security funding scheme, which has helped protect at least 84 Mosques. We have also supported Tell MAMA with just over £2.8 million between 2016 and 2020 to monitor and combat anti-Muslim hatred.