HC Deb 25 November 1993 vol 233 cc167-9W
Mr. Simon Hughes

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what initiatives he has pursued to help combat racial attacks.

Mr. Peter Lloyd

The Government have on many occasions expressed their abhorrence of racial violence and harassment and fully supports police efforts to tackle racially motivated crime.

In 1989 the inter-departmental racial attacks group, chaired by the Home Office, produced its first report stressing the importance of dealing with racial attacks as a priority task and recommending a multi-agency approach to combatting racial crimes. The report was distributed to all local authorities and to all police forces, and the implementation of the recommendations by forces has been monitored by Her Majesty's inspectorate of constabulary.

A follow-up report was published in January 1992, which detailed progress made so far, noted good practice, and proposed how the police and local agencies might further develop their response to racial attacks and harassment.

National and local police training addresses the issue of radical attacks, as part of a wider programme of race awareness training. The Home Office funds the specialist support unit in police-community' and race relations training, which deals among other matters with racial attacks training for police trainers.

Each year the Home Office sponsors the Holly Royde seminar on community and race relations which brings together police officers from forces across the country with the purpose of addressing community and race relations issues in an operational context and developing action plans for implementation in forces.

Other initiatives include: the establishment in 1988 of a Home Office-funded pilot multi-agency project in Newham, East London, which produced a report in 1991 providing a detailed understanding of the practice of multi-agency co-ordination; the production of a crime prevention leaflet on racial attacks in several different ethnic minority languages, and encouragement of reporting of incidents through poster campaigns; Home Office sponsored research on victimisation in east London and Manchester. The Home Affairs Committee is conducting an inquiry into racial attacks and harassment. I gave evidence in July. Future Government action will be informed by the Committee's recommendations.

Mr. Betts

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many individuals have been prosecuted to date under part III of the Public Order Act 1986—racial hatred —for offences committed at a designated football match.

Mr. Maclean

Court proceedings data collected centrally do not detail the circumstances and/or the venue where the offence took place.