Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many attacks with corrosive substances there were in (a) the UK, (b) London and (c) the London Borough of Newham in each of the last three years; and how many were classified as hate crimes in each of those categories.

The Home Office does not specifically collect data from police forces on acid and other corrosive attacks as part of its regular data collection. Acid and other corrosive attacks resulting in injury are included in Office for National Statistics published statistics within the relevant offence, such as assault with injury or assault with intent to cause serious harm. These data cannot be disaggregated to identify offences that involved acid or other corrosive substances.

Indicative figures from the National Police Chiefs’ Council suggest that 408 acid or corrosive attacks were carried out in the six months up to April 2017, based on returns from 39 police forces in England and Wales. These figures must be treated with caution, as they are not official statistics and have not been subject to the usual assurance processes but based on returns from 39 police forces.

We have announced a cross Government action plan to tackle the use of acid and other corrosives in violent attacks which includes improving police recording and reporting of offences.

The Home Office does collect information on the number of hate crimes recorded by the police. Information is not held on how many of these hate crimes involved a corrosive substance.

Information on the number of hate crimes recorded by the police is published on an annual basis in the statistical bulletin Hate Crime, England and Wales, 2015/16, available here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/hate-crime-england-and-wales-2015-to-2016

This Government is committed to tackling hate crime. The UK has a strong legislative framework to tackle hate crime. We are working across Government with police, (including National Community Tensions Team), the Crown Prosecution Service and community partners to send out a clear message that hate crime will not be tolerated and we will vigorously pursue and prosecute those who commit these crimes.