Urgent Question (Commons) on Hate Crime - Mar 12

Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab) 

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if she will make a statement on hate crime in light of the inflammatory letters inciting a “Punish a Muslim day” on 3 April.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Victoria Atkins) 

Mr Speaker, as you will appreciate, the letters described in the question are part of an ongoing investigation, and as such I am not in a position to comment on them. However, the Government condemn the content of the letters as clearly abhorrent, with no place in decent society. This Government take hate crime and Islamophobia extremely seriously, and the UK has a robust legislative framework to respond to it.

Freedom of speech, freedom of worship, democracy, the rule of law, and equal rights define us as a society. The Government are determined to promote those values actively, working in partnership and alongside Muslim and, indeed, all faith communities to demonstrate that what we have in common is the best defence against extremists who would seek to divide us.

Our hate crime action plan, published in 2016, sets out our comprehensive approach to tackling hate crime. We have a strong legislative framework to tackle hate crime, including offences of inciting racial and religious hatred, and racial and religiously aggravated offences. The legislation provides equal protection under the law for all ethnic and religious groups. We have sources of expert advice on the nature and causes of hate crime through the anti-Muslim hatred working group and the independent advisory group on hate crime.

We have committed £2.4 million over three years to help to protect places of worship that have been the subject of or are vulnerable to a hate crime attack. We also committed a further £1 million following the terrible Finsbury Park terror attack in June last year, to help to protect places of worship and associated community centres that are vulnerable to attack on racial, religious or ideological grounds. So far, we have funded 45 mosques under both schemes. We have also funded Tell MAMA to record anti-Muslim hatred incidents and to support victims. From this year, we have made it mandatory for police forces to disaggregate religious hate crime data held by the police to reveal the true scale and nature of the problem, which we are determined to tackle.

Yasmin Qureshi 

Thank you for granting this urgent question, Mr Speaker. The letter calling for an attack on Muslims on 3 April offers attackers rewards, ranging from 10 points for verbal abuse, 50 points for throwing acid and 1,000 points for bombing a mosque to 2,500 points for nuking Mecca. May I remind the House that millions of Muslims fought for us in the two world wars, including members of my family? Figures show that the number of Islamophobia hate crimes has increased by 40%, with 1,678 anti-Muslim hate crimes reported in London in the year up to January 2018. Can the Minister therefore explain why no Minister in the past eight years has made a speech on the rise of anti-Muslim hatred?

Recent surveys have shown that 50% of the British population believe that Islam is a threat to western democracy and more than 30% of young children believe that Muslims are taking over England. Given that such anti-Muslim views have gained such traction, what are the Government going to do to help to prevent the growth of such extreme views, which appear to have come from parts of the print, broadcast and social media? What concrete steps are the Government going to take to tackle this growth in hate crimes and hatred against Muslims? Will the Minister set out the amount of funding provided by the Home Office to tackle each form of bigotry?

I think every Member in this House will accept that there has been a sharp rise in the far right movement in Europe and beyond, with the USA’s President retweeting far right material. This is a really urgent situation and it needs to be urgently tackled. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response as to what concrete steps are going to be taken to deal with it.

Victoria Atkins 

I thank the hon. Lady for her urgent question. May I make it clear that this Government want to give a strong message of support to Muslim people across the UK that we are committed to their safety and security? I say to anyone who has received this letter, or a similar communication, please contact the police, where you will be treated with utmost seriousness and action will be taken.

I now move on to the points the hon. Lady made. The issue of anti-Muslim and far right extremism is of course a focus for the Government. As she knows, the Prevent strategy tackles extremism. It does not tackle Muslim extremism in and of itself; it tackles extremism, full stop. Sadly, more than a quarter of referrals in the Prevent strategy in 2015-16 concerned far right extremism. So this Government, and in particular this Prime Minister, with all the experience she brings to her position following her time in the Home Office, are focused on tackling extremism and radicalisation and how they affect any part of our community. That is precisely why we are refreshing the hate crime action plan this year.

Anna Soubry (Broxtowe) (Con) 

I just want to put on the record the fact that the mayor of Broxtowe, Halimah Khaled, just happens to be a Muslim. She happens to be the first person of colour to be mayor of Broxtowe and she is its first Muslim mayor. She also happens to be a Tory. She has completed nearly one year in office, during which time she has had a warm welcome wherever she has gone in my borough, and rightly so. People are sick and tired of hate crime and Islamophobia. This is absolutely no longer to be tolerated. I commend the Minister for everything she has said in her statement, and I do believe this Government take this very seriously. We are not really talking about a hate crime here; it is actually an act of blatant incitement to terrorism. In any event, I am looking over at the co-chair of the all-party group on British Muslims, the hon. Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting). We have worked together on this, and I am sure he will agree when I say that the time has now come for a proper legal definition of Islamophobia. Does the Minister agree?

Victoria Atkins 

I thank my right hon. Friend for her impassioned plea for recognition throughout the country of the role not only of her local mayor, but of many other people in public life who happen to practise the Muslim religion as part of their way of life and who contribute so very much to our community. I put on record my thanks to her local mayor.

There are many definitions of Islamophobia, but most people tend to adhere to the one used by the Runnymede Trust. We do not accept the need for a definitive definition, but we know that Islamophobia is clearly recognised and that we have very effective monitoring of race-hate crimes. Considerable work is done on these matters by Tell MAMA and the anti-Muslim hatred working group.

Louise Haigh (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab) 

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting this urgent question. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi) on securing it.

The despicable sentiments behind these sickening letters has caused revulsion throughout our communities. Although we can be confident that, thanks to the tireless dedication of community leaders, charities, faith groups and civil society, such deliberate attempts to divide us will not succeed, this act will have struck fear into the heart of communities—indeed, that was the intention. It is absolutely an incitement to violence and it cannot go unpunished.

As we have heard, hate crimes are rising nationwide. In London alone, there has been a fivefold increase in attacks on Muslims in the past year. As the outgoing counter-terror chief Mark Rowley has said, the threat from the extreme right wing is significant and requires urgent attention. We have seen the murder of our colleague and friend, Jo Cox, the attack at Finsbury Park mosque, the proscription of National Action, the jailing of the leaders of Britain First, and the reports from the Anderson review, which suggested that the extreme right wing is engaged in credible attack planning, including bomb making. There is now overwhelming evidence that the threat from the extreme right is growing increasingly violent. We have to be clear that by threatening members of our diverse communities, these people are also a threat to our national security through their anti-democratic, dehumanising and murderous beliefs.

Given the overwhelming evidence, it is clear that so-called domestic extremism needs to be dealt with as a first-order threat, so will the Minister reassure us that, in line with the Anderson review recommendations, the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre will start to produce national threat assessments of domestic extremism? Will she increase the role for MI5, JTAC and the counter-terrorism network in the monitoring and handling of investigations of domestic extremism? Is it not time to update the Contest strategy to reflect the growing threat from the extreme right?

More broadly, can the Minister assure us that counter-terrorism policing has the resources it needs? The Government’s funding settlement last month gave only half what the police requested for counter-terror purposes, while the police and our intelligence services are facing an unprecedented threat from terrorism in all its forms.

We all deplore these despicable letters. They are an attempt to divide us; in that, they will not succeed. We must be united as a House and as a country in bearing down on the insidious beliefs contained within these letters and be absolutely clear on how we are going to bring together the police, schools, colleges and all authorities to stand up to hate crime and terrorism in every single one of their forms. Finally, we must ensure that all of us, as elected politicians, are at all times responsible in our language and rhetoric and never seek to embolden those who hold such insidious and extremist views.

Victoria Atkins 

I am sure that everyone in the House agrees with the hon. Lady, particularly on that last point about the importance of using language very carefully. She asked me about police resources; of course, we have increased them and, as she will know, the Home Secretary reviews those resources constantly. We ask the police whether they have the resources that they need, and the Home Secretary acts accordingly. May I undertake to write to the hon. Lady specifically on JTAC and her other queries? Finally, let me say that it is gratifying to see so many Members present, unified in condemning these dreadful letters and their sentiments and in our determination to tackle them.

Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con) 

Hate crime in all its forms is to be condemned, as is this letter. Another group that is affected by growing hate crime is the Jewish community, and the Community Security Trust is having to go to ever greater lengths to protect local Jewish community centres. Can we ensure that all these forms of hate crime are combated as far as possible?

Victoria Atkins 

I thank my hon. Friend for his question. Of course, any group of people who are the victims of hate crime as a result of their religious beliefs deserve our sympathy and also our action. I, like him, condemn any form of anti-Semitism. I know that the police are as focused on that form of crime as they are on any other form of religious hate crime.

Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP) 

I congratulate the hon. Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi) on securing this urgent question, and reassure her, and the rest of the House, that the Scottish National party joins in the condemnation of Islamophobia in the strongest possible terms? We believe that there is no excuse for any sort of hate crime, and we were as concerned as everyone else in this House to see the significant rise in hate crime statistics in England and Wales last year. We note that that followed a spike in hate crime figures around the time of the EU referendum, and as others have said, this is happening alongside a significant rise in right-wing extremism.

In Scotland, the police are committed to making victims, witnesses and partner agencies feel more confident in reporting hate crime, and they do so through a variety of methods, including a network of third party reporting centres. In Scotland, a senior judge has been appointed to lead an independent review into hate crime legislation, and he will be reporting to the Scottish Government later this year. What reassurance can the Minister give us that similar steps are being taken in the rest of the UK, where hate crime is rising, and in particular that similar steps are being taken to tackle the specific problem at issue here, which is Islamophobia?

Victoria Atkins 

I thank the hon. and learned Lady for her question and, indeed, for her contribution in relation to what is happening in Scotland. We very much look at how we tackle hate crime, particularly through our hate crime action plan, which was published in 2016 and will be refreshed this year. Its range of actions include: funding for security for places of worship; the disaggregation of religion-based hate crime data; taking further action in relation to education so that teachers can have sometimes difficult conversations with their students about beliefs and words; and funding programmes through the Anne Frank Trust and Streetwise. We are determined to ensure that our action in relation to hate crime is up to date and current.

Dr Matthew Offord (Hendon) (Con) 

As someone who visited a Syrian refugee camp in Malatya in Turkey over the weekend, I find it a little offensive that a Labour Member has said that no Conservative Minister had ever actually condemned any kind of anti-Muslim extremism. Is the Minister aware that her equivalent at the Department for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi), publicly rebuked the President of the United States for retweeting certain comments and invited him to visit Muslim communities in the United Kingdom?

Victoria Atkins 

I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend. I must say that I was not sure whether I had heard the hon. Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi) correctly. As I have said, the record of both the Prime Minister and Cabinet Ministers on the issue of tackling anti-Muslim sentiments is pretty clear. It may be that the hon. Lady can clarify her remarks at a later stage.

Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab) 

I do not think that the previous question represented the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi) was making. I hope that we can address this issue as a united Parliament, and not in a way that is divided. We should all stand together against this kind of vile threat and this illegal incitement to violence. Our whole Parliament, the police and our communities across the country should want to stand firm with Muslim families and Muslim communities against this kind of vile Islamophobia, because we know from history that an attack on some of us is an attack on all of us. That is why we stand firm.

What has the Home Office done since I raised last week the prevalence of National Action illegal propaganda videos on YouTube—still—and also, I discover, on Twitter and on Facebook? We know that the former counter-terror chief has warned of online radicalisation and the rise of far right extremism, and our Select Committee has heard in our inquiry about the serious issues around Islamophobia and hate crime. The Minister will know that we are allowing social media companies to collude with these far right extremists if action is not taken to take down this kind of vile illegal propaganda.

Victoria Atkins 

The right hon. Lady knows the work that the Home Secretary is doing with the large technology companies to improve their reaction. I think that pretty much everyone in this place—and certainly everyone outside—agrees that technology companies need to do more to remove these hateful pieces of incitement from their platforms much more quickly and working with police. I am sure that we have agreement on that.

Paula Sherriff (Dewsbury) (Lab) 

My constituents are very worried about the rise in hate crime. Is the Minister satisfied that, in light of the significant cuts, Dewsbury and, indeed, West Yorkshire and further afield have the necessary police resources to investigate and apprehend those responsible for this abhorrent crime?

Victoria Atkins 

It is about how resources are spent, which is particularly pertinent to the question of West Yorkshire. I cannot recall the figure off the top of my head, but I seem to recall that West Yorkshire has several million pounds of reserves in savings. Of course, how that money is spent is a matter for the elected police and crime commissioner. I very much hope he will take up the Home Office’s funding settlement suggestion of increasing council tax to ensure more money to deal with the resourcing issue.

Tracy Brabin (Batley and Spen) (Lab/Co-op) 

I have been approached by many in my constituency who are deeply concerned about these letters. As with last year’s Muslim ban, they feel unfairly targeted and under siege. Although this is an obvious opportunity to target internet companies, social media websites and so on, this was snail mail. May I press the Minister to pick up on the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Feltham and Heston (Seema Malhotra)? Will she update us on who sent these letters and what is going on to find out how to stop them? Will she reassure my constituents that once those people are apprehended, they will feel the full weight of the law?

Victoria Atkins 

I must not and cannot go into more detail on the specifics of the ongoing police investigation, because the hon. Lady will not want me or anyone else to inadvertently endanger any future prosecution. I can reassure her, however, that the case is being investigated very carefully and that the full force of the law is being applied.

Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab) 

That anti-Semitic and Islamophobic hate crime is on the rise is well documented, but we also know that there is significant under-reporting—often by women, in my experience. Hijab-wearing Muslim women are often most vulnerable because of their visibility. On the need to reach women in communities and, as my Friend the Member for Bristol West (Thangam Debbonaire) has said, not just in mosques, what assurances can the Minister give that the Government are doing what they can to get out into those communities the message about the need to report all incidents of hate crime?

Victoria Atkins 

The hon. Lady has hit on a very important point. We must all do what we can to encourage victims of hate crime—whether it is to do with race, religion, disability or gender identity—to report it. Under-reporting is a real issue and I hope that the work of organisations such as Tell MAMA will help people find the wherewithal to report such incidents to the police so that they can be dealt with.

Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD) 

I welcome the fact that we are all united in condemning this despicable attempt to divide our communities. Since 2016, national rhetoric and language have led to a big increase in hate crime. Will the Government lead by example and encourage everybody to tone down their national language and rhetoric?

Victoria Atkins 

Yes.

Jo Stevens (Cardiff Central) (Lab) 

The Minister has referred several times to the £2.4 million of funding under the Government’s anti-hate scheme. She has also said that just 45 places of worship have received funding. Are there any plans to increase the amount of funding and the number of places of worship that will attract funding this year?

Victoria Atkins 

May I write to the hon. Lady, because I confess that I am unclear as to whether applications are in tune and would not wish in any way to inadvertently answer incorrectly?

Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op) 

The best way to build belonging, tolerance and relationships is to invest in opportunities for people to come together and learn understanding. Oldham, which does that pretty well, was completely undermined by the Government snatching away the area-based grant in 2010, with no assessment made of the impact that would have on local cohesion in communities. Will the Government take seriously the need to invest at a community level in order to bring people together?

Victoria Atkins 

Of course we recognise the importance of bringing communities together, and there are many ways in which to do that. My constituency may enjoy being brought together in a very different way from another constituency elsewhere in the country. I am not clear about the direct impact asserted by the hon. Gentleman in relation to that project, but I will happily write to him about it.

Joan Ryan (Enfield North) (Lab) 

May I, along with everybody else, condemn this absolutely abhorrent letter? It has been reported that since the EU referendum there has been a spike in hate crime, both in Islamophobia and in anti-Semitism, coming from the hard right and the hard left. It has also been reported by the Crown Prosecution Service that, against that increase in incidents, there was a drop by more than 1,000 in the number of prosecutions in 2016-17. What is the Minister doing with the CPS and the police to ensure that that is reversed?

Victoria Atkins 

The drop in referrals, recorded last year, has had an impact on the number of completed prosecutions in 2016 and 2017. The Crown Prosecution Service is working with the police at local and national level to understand the reasons for the overall fall in referrals in the past two years. The message to spread around our constituencies to people who have been a victim of hate crime is please report it, because that way we can try to do something about it.

Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab) 

Police forces such as Greater Manchester that have long targeted hate crime, and who work hard with the CST on anti-Semitism and with the Muslim community on Islamophobia, recognise that community policing is central to challenging hate crime. Will the Minister take that message back? Community policing is about trust, and trust is fundamental. We need our community police.

Victoria Atkins 

Of course local policing is important, but we also have to recognise that we cannot just rely on policing alone to reach into communities and build relationships. That is why organisations such as Tell MAMA and others are such an important part of the overall picture in ensuring that when people feel they have been victims of crime they know what to do, know where to go, and feel they will be listened to and their experiences acted upon.

Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab) 

It is clear that the whole House condemns the cowards who are sending out this letter. However, it is not just those sending this letter who are causing hate and it is not just groups like Britain First. At the end of last month, my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon) and I received a letter from the British National party, which included a racist poem. On the back of the letter it said that unless action was taken today

“Rebecca will be in an ethnic minority group when she grows up”

Will the Minister condemn the actions of the BNP and say there should be no place in British society for political parties that peddle such hate?

Victoria Atkins 

I am absolutely clear that the BNP and all the other far right organisations described today have no place in our society. Frankly, their showing at the ballot box, when they dare to stand for election, shows how little truck the British public have with them.