§ Mr. McNamaraTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what research he has undertaken into the operation of laws on race hate and racially aggravated offences; what the conclusions of this research are; what relevance this research has for consideration of a religious hate law; and if he will place research findings in the Library. [29734]
§ Angela Eagle[holding answer 23 January 2002]: We commissioned researchers from the Cambridge University Institute of Criminology to evaluate the implementation of the legislation on racially-aggravated offences as contained in the Crime and Disorder Act 1998. This research explored the first two years of this legislation to find out how criminal justice agencies had responded in their use of these new laws, and in their practices and procedures. It is expected that the report will be published in the spring.
This research was commissioned well in advance of the events of September 11 last year. It was these events that prompted our proposing the introduction of religious hatred provisions as part of the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Bill.
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