Tories call for ban on recording ‘non-crime hate incidents’

Police officers should be banned from recording “non-crime hate incidents” (NCHIs) in all but a few cases, the Conservatives have said.

Kemi Badenoch said her party would put forward an amendment to the Government’s Crime and Policing Bill banning the practice, except where a senior officer thought the information would assist in the detection or prevention of a future crime.

NCHIs are record incidents that do not count as crimes but are perceived to be motivated by hatred towards certain characteristics such as race or gender.

Escalate

According to the Home Office, they allow forces to monitor incidents that “could escalate into more serious harm or indicate heightened community tensions”, and were introduced following recommendations by the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry in 1999.

Tuesday marks 33 years since Stephen Lawrence was murdered in a racially motivated attack in south-east London.

But Mrs Badenoch said NCHIs had “wasted police time chasing ideology and grievance instead of justice” and suggested officers were “trawling social media for things someone might find offensive” rather than “fighting crime and protecting families”.

She said: “No wonder public trust in the police is falling. People see officers distracted from real threats and politicians too scared to act.

“Keir Starmer needs to stop hiding behind weasel words. Stand up, show some courage, and back real policing over political correctness.

“If Labour were serious about the violence in our towns and cities, they’d back our amendment and fix this.”

In 2023, the Conservative government changed the guidance on NCHIs so that the identity of someone alleged to have carried out an offence only be recorded if there was a real risk of “significant harm” to individuals or groups, or of a criminal offence being committed in future.

The new guidelines also instructed officers not to record an NCHI if the complaint was “trivial” or the incident was not motivated by “intentional hostility or prejudice”.

The number of NCHIs appears to have fallen slightly since 2021, according to figures obtained last year by the Daily Telegraph under freedom of information laws.

‘Orwellian’

Shadow home secretary Chris Philp, who was policing minister when the new guidelines were introduced, said: “Our amendment will stop police forces from wasting time on this Orwellian nonsense and get them back to doing the job the public expects: fighting real crime.

“The Conservative Party will always stand up for free speech, common sense.”

Policing minister Diana Johnson said: “The Tories are all over the place. They had 14 years in charge of policing to set priorities or make policy changes in this area, and failed to do so.

“The shadow home secretary was the policing minister who said just two years ago that ‘if someone is targeted because of hostility or prejudice towards their race, religion, sexual orientation, disability or transgender identity the incident can and should be recorded as a non-crime hate incident’.

“Instead of introducing unworkable and half-baked measures which would prevent the police monitoring serious antisemitism and other racist incidents, the Tories should support the Labour Government’s prioritisation of neighbourhood policing and serious violence.”