Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

My Lords, Amendment 176ZZA deals with hate crime. Hate crime is abhorrent and the criminal justice system should be seen to treat it severely. We want to ensure that offenders should be in no doubt that they will face more serious penalties for this type of crime. The effect of this government amendment is to add ““transgender identity”” to Section 146 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003, which provides for the sentence to be aggravated where the offender demonstrates hostility towards the victim on the basis of a specified personal characteristic. Currently, Section 146 applies to hostility based on the victim’s, "““sexual orientation (or presumed sexual orientation) … or … disability (or presumed disability)””." Section 145 makes similar provision in relation to hostility based on the victim’s race or religion. In addition, the amendment adds references to transgender identity and disability to paragraph 5 of Schedule 21, so that murders aggravated on the basis of hostility towards the victim on those grounds will attract a 30-year starting point. The amendments are straightforward but I should be clear that ““transgender”” is an umbrella term that includes, but is not restricted to, being transsexual. It will be for the courts to determine in individual cases whether or not the words or behaviour of the offender constitute hostility based on the victim’s transgender identity or presumed transgender identity. The Government consider that all five monitored strands of hate crime should be treated equally under these particular provisions. This sends a strong message and should, I hope, give more confidence to victims in reporting these dreadful crimes. I beg to move.