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Crime Reduction

My hon. Friend, too, has an important record on these matters. He is right; violence in any form is completely unacceptable, but when it is linked to the kind of hatred and bigotry that homophobic crime represents, it is even worse. A lot of good work is going on in police forces now, including the work that we are doing with them, to record and to tackle crimes with a homophobic element. We will certainly continue to think carefully about how and whether we need to change the nature of offences to reflect the seriousness of the situation that my hon. Friend has identified.