Hate crime: Concern at rise in Welsh figures

AMs have called for urgent action after a rise in the number of hate crimes recorded in Wales.

Welsh police forces recorded 3,932 hate crimes for 2018-17 - nearly doubling since 2013. A total of 751 related to sexual orientation - a 12% rise.

Plaid Cymru's Sian Gwenllian said Welsh ministers had failed to "get to the heart" of dealing with hate crime.

A minister said the Welsh Government was "determined to root out" hate crime, hate speech and intolerance.

Opening a debate on LGBT hate crime, following publication of the Home Office figures last week, Arfon AM Ms Gwenllian said a "willingness to come forward to report these incidents and better ways of recording the information" would partly explain the increase.

But she said "there is prejudice at the root of this increase in hate crimes and we must address that prejudice if we are to create a civilised society in Wales, one that embraces difference and respects the rights of individuals in terms of their sexuality".

Ms Gwenllian felt the Welsh Government had "failed to truly comprehend the need to give priority to this issue and to get to the heart of the problem in dealing with hate crime".

"There has been a framework drawn up to tackle hate crime, but we haven't received a great deal of information about that and no update on it for almost two years," she said.

Ex-Plaid Cymru leader Leanne Wood called for full devolution of criminal justice to "create a system that will benefit all of our communities, to properly tackle LGBT hate crime and protecting LGBT people".

Conservative Monmouth AM Nick Ramsay called on ministers to work with councils, schools and police to "try and eradicate the prejudice and the violence that our LGBT constituents across Wales face on a day-to-day basis".

"Anti-trans hate crime has more than quadrupled in the last five years," he said.

"So, these really are breathtaking statistics that you wouldn't accept in any other line of life or line of criminal statistics."

Jenny Rathbone, Labour Cardiff Central AM, said she hoped plans to make sex and relationship classes compulsory in all state schools in Wales could be a "game changer" to ensure "the next generation really does understand respect for difference and ensuring that people are not consumed by their prejudices, which can lead to lifelong mental health problems".

Responding to the debate, deputy minister Jane Hutt said "intolerance, hate speech and instances of hate crime have no place in our society" and "we're determined to root them out".

She said she had written to Home Secretary Priti Patel to ask for hate crime motivated by hostility based on sexual orientation to be recognised as an aggravated offence.

Ms Hutt said she would also urge her to make hate crime motivated by hostility based on transgender identity and disability to be recognised as an aggravated offence.

"We have done a significant amount of work to increase awareness of hate crime and to urge victims to come forward and report, so the increase is likely to be partly due to an improvement in reporting, but these statistics remind us how we need to reflect on what more can be done, and that has to be the outcome of this debate, to ensure no one is targeted because of their identity," Ms Hutt said.