Written question asked by Lord Avebury (Liberal Democrat), in the House of Lords. It was answered by Earl Attlee (Conservative) on Monday, 1 November 2010.

Crime: Hate

Question: To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they will take to ensure that police forces routinely keep records of the religion or beliefs of defendants and victims in cases of racially or religiously aggravated offences, and make them available to the Crown Prosecution Service.

Answer: The Government understand the importance of the recording of hate crime, which is why the programme for government includes a commitment to improve the collection of these data. We are currently liaising with the police on the implementation of this commitment and we anticipate the collection of this data to begin in April 2011. This will provide us with police recorded crime data for the Government’s five hate crime strands (disability, gender identity, race, religion or belief, sexual orientation). However, in order to balance the commitment on the better collection of hate crime data with our desire to end Whitehall interference in local policing, the data will not be disaggregated to reflect the religion or belief of offenders and victims. We are removing targets and reviewing the data burden placed on forces. We believe that the work that is being taken forward achieves this balance.

Secondary information

Type: Written question
Reference: 2656; 721 c347WA
Session: 2010-12
Subjects: Offenders Police Racially aggravated offences Religiously aggravated offences Victims Statistics Religion
Link: View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk