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

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of findings in the Statistical Bulletin, Hate Crime, England and Wales, 2017–18, published on 18 October, which shows that  more than half of religiously-motivated attacks in 2017–18 were directed at Muslims.

The findings confirm the Government's assessment that we must deal robustly with anti-Muslim hatred and Islamophobia. The Government takes these hate crimes extremely seriously, and we are determined to tackle them. On 16 October the Home Office and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government published a refreshed Hate Crime Action Plan to guide Government’s work against all forms of prejudice and discrimination over the the period 2018 to 2020. This includes a strong focus on tackling anti-Muslim hatred and Islamophobia through the Cross-Government Working Group to Tackle Anti-Muslim Hatred. In addition to this, the Government is providing TellMama, a specialist organisation allowing people to report anti-Muslim abuse, with £2.5million between 2016 and 2020, to boost reporting of Islamophobic and anti-Muslim incidents, and to support victims.