Peers vote to scrap non-crime hate incidents months after Met Police said it would stop investigating them
Almost five months after the Metropolitan Police announced its decision to stop investigating, peers have voted to scrap non-criminal hate incidents.
Lord Toby Young of Acton formally proposed repealing the legislation as part of the ongoing Crime and Policing Bill, a piece of legislation that still requires further parliamentary scrutiny before becoming law.
These incidents are generally defined as acts that are motivated by hostility towards individuals based on certain protected characteristics, such as race, religion, disability or gender, but do not ultimately constitute a crime.
London’s Met Police last year confirmed it would no longer investigate such cases, after launching a high-profile investigation specifically into Father Ted creator Graham Linehan’s social media posts about transgender issues.
Interior Minister Shabana Mahmood said earlier this year: Telegram he would “definitely expect to see” non-criminal hate incidents change.
He added: “The question is, what do you do instead?”
Lord Young said on Wednesday that the amendment, which was supported by 221 votes to 221 and a majority of six, said: “It is not only in the interest of my noble friends on this side of the House (the Conservatives), some of whom have recorded non-criminal hate incidents against them, that it is in the interest of the then noble Lords (Labour) and the Liberal Democrats to put a legal limit on what non-criminal offenses the police can investigate you for and keep records in your name.”
“Remember, the political wind can change.
“It is in your interest to put a legal limit on what the police cannot investigate and record as crime, it is in all our interests.
“It must be put on a truly legal basis.”
As part of the Conservative Party’s proposal, police authorities would be banned from processing personal data to record non-criminal hate incidents, but officers would still be able to look at information “relevant to the prevention and detection of crime”.
Forces will also be required to clear their files of non-criminal hate incident records that, when detected, fall below a certain threshold and not release information under Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) checks.
Non-criminal hate incidents were initiated in 1993 after an investigation into the murder and death of Stephen Lawrence was launched and a system for reporting and recording racist incidents and crimes was established.
His mother, Labor Baroness Doreen Lawrence of Clarendon, said: “It depends on how you view non-criminal hatred and who is on the receiving end of it.
“Now, for me, this incident led to the murder of my son.
“Individuals who now feel like they have the right to go around and talk a certain way, especially about young black men, things that start out just verbally, lead to violence.”
Discussing the motion on Monday, Lady Lawrence added: “How can you move forward if it progresses from verbal violence to violence and you have no way of tracking where it starts?”
He urged his colleagues to consider “what consequences” abandoning the regime of crime-free hate might have.
Lord Young said verbal abuse “will continue to meet the new registration threshold” for anti-social behavior and said he had “no objection to such things being recorded”.
He continued: “I just want to prevent less important things from being recorded and the police wasting too much time on them.”
Home Secretary Lord David Hanson of Flint said the Government had launched a review into non-criminal hate incidents.
“So we took action,” he said, adding: “We are trying to change this regime.”
Lord Hanson said: “We want to make sure we retain the essence of what this regime was originally founded on.”
He added that this was “gathering information, preventing crime, understanding tensions, looking at potential areas where tensions could escalate, supporting investigations and protecting the vulnerable” and that these “remain as relevant today as they did 30 years ago”.
Turning to Lord Young’s proposed DBS check rules, Lord Hanson said: “Ultimately, deciding whether to disclose information that does not involve convictions is a decision made in accordance with legal guidance given by the Home Office reflecting the sensitive nature of the information.
“I do not believe it is appropriate for us to tie the hands of officers to impose a ban on disclosing information that may be relevant to individuals who choose to work with the most vulnerable in our society.”
