Police and Justice Bill

moved Amendment No. 115: After Clause 20, insert the following new clause- ““COLLECTION OF DATA The Secretary of State shall collect and interpret data on reporting of offences which manifest prejudice based on race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, ethnicity or other group characteristic.”” The noble Baroness said: The amendment ensures a positive obligation to collect data on offences motivated by prejudice. I am grateful to the Guide Dogs for the Blind Association for providing briefing material. Most work on hate crime does not include hate crime committed against disabled people. The lack of statistics hampers work on this issue. In tackling hate crime of this nature, it would therefore be helpful if police forces were obliged to record details about a person's disability, along with their access needs. We are pleased that the Metropolitan Police have already identified this as an issue and are currently reviewing their procedures to ensure that the statistics that they already collect on hate crime are as accurate as possible. Our organisations raised this matter during the passage of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 and the Government said that they would conduct a review of the collection of police statistics. Our organisations would welcome an update on the outcome of that review, if the Minister can provide it. In the United States, legislation requiring data collection has proved to be a powerful mechanism to confront violent bigotry against individuals on the basis of their race, religion, sexual orientation or ethnicity, and has increased public awareness of the problem. As a result, there has been an increase in the reporting of those offences. The Department of Justice has established a new toll-free phone number to report complaints of hate crimes. Studies have demonstrated that the victims are more likely to report a hate crime if they know that a special reporting system is in place. Although the disability equality duty will clearly require the gathering of information about this ability, there is no such requirement about sexual orientation. For the avoidance of doubt in relation to disability, to prepare for any future duty concerning sexual orientation and for the better delivery of criminal justice, that should be made clear in the Bill. By placing a specific requirement in the Bill, the Government would make it clear that the collection of hate crime statistics was compulsory. Such a requirement would also complement Section 146 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003, which was brought into force in April 2005, and provides for additional penalties for disability and homophobic hate crimes. Such a requirement would also be consistent with the Criminal Justice (Northern Ireland) Order, which requires the collection of statistics in Northern Ireland. We also believe that more accurate statistics will to help the police to devise effective strategies for dealing with all forms of hate crime. I beg to move.