Debate contribution: Hate Crime Legislation in Northern Ireland

Debate contribution by Ms Sinéad McLaughlin on 4 June 2024.

MLA

Ms Sinéad McLaughlin

Party at the time

Social Democratic and Labour Party

Date

4 June 2024

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Opposition Business

Heading

Hate Crime Legislation in Northern Ireland

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4493952

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I beg to move

Thank you, Mr Speaker. In proposing the motion on hate crime legislation, I particularly want to voice the SDLP call for such stand-alone legislation to be introduced within the next 12 months. Everyone across the Chamber is appalled by hate crime in all its forms. We all want to make progress on this issue, and our shared interest is in ensuring that progress is made as quickly and effectively as possible. Hopefully, we are all united in finding the statistics on hate crime utterly horrifying. In the 12 months from 1 April 2023 to 31 March 2024, the following hate-motivated crimes were reported: 839 on the basis of race; 241 on the basis of sexual orientation; 730 on the basis of sectarianism; 58 on the basis of disability; 48 on the basis of faith and religion; and 41 on the basis of transgender identity. There should be no place for hate crimes anywhere across the North. We must root out hate everywhere we find it and never allow it to fester, including by dismantling the attitudes that drive those crimes in the first place.

Those attitudes have been given far too much oxygen in recent months. Last night, I attended the installation of the new Mayor of Derry City and Strabane, Lilian Seenoi-Barr. It was a joyous, profound and moving evening, but her appointment has shown us just how far we have to go when it comes to hate. If anyone has seen the trolls on her social media over the past four weeks — indeed, the trolls were out in some form last night again — they will find them really quite shocking. That has given me a sense of some of the darkest elements of the hate of difference in our society. We know that those are just some of the examples of the deeply toxic and damaging hatred that has come to the fore recently. Like many people, I have been deeply shocked and appalled at the racist anti-asylum seeker graffiti painted on walls across Northern Ireland. Many hate incidents have gone unpunished. Unfortunately, progress has been far too slow on this issue, and we risk adding action on hate crime to the list of issues that still have not been progressed by the Assembly. My party colleagues and I believe that making progress on hate crime should be right at the top of our priorities. In 2020, Judge Marrinan published his seminal independent review of hate crime legislation in Northern Ireland. It engaged extensively with academics, experts and stakeholders. Its recommendations were clear and unambiguous, and he said that the current system and current laws were not fit for purpose. He also made clear, in recommendation 31, the need to end the current piecemeal approach and consolidate current hate crime legislation into one Bill. That was supported by 79% of respondents to the consultation on the review. The current piecemeal approach was considered to be:

"outdated, underutilised, and subject to significant gaps."

At the time, the Equality Commission said that strengthening hate crime legislation by consolidating it in one Bill:

"will make the legislation easier to understand, provide greater clarity and certainty and ensure a consistent approach, including to addressing hate crime across a number of equality groups."

Similarly, the Public Prosecution Service (PPS) confirmed that a single piece of legislation would assist in communicating to the public how seriously such matters were taken. The wide support for such stand-alone legislation shows just how much consensus there is for a Bill that could bring an overarching focus to hate crime, improve transparency and help to raise public awareness. The call for stand-alone hate crime legislation is a recommendation that has also been repeatedly accepted and endorsed by the Justice Minister. In April 2021, speaking in the Chamber, the Minister said:

"I agree with Judge Marrinan that his recommendations merit a stand-alone hate crime Bill. That is planned for introduction in the next mandate". — [Official Report (Hansard), Bound Volume 138, p36, col 2].

In June 2021, the Minister said:

"We are taking a number of actions to bring forward hate crime legislation ... The draft Bill will come forward at the start of the next mandate." — [Official Report (Hansard), 21 June 2021, p19, col 1].

Like many others, I welcomed the consultation stages on such a Bill, including the extensive work that had already been undertaken on the more complex issues, such as dealing with sectarianism, and whether misogyny would be specified as a hate crime in the Bill. The Minister previously described the Bill as being of huge importance in protecting people's dignity, rights, safety and security. In the legislative programme that was set out by the Justice Minister's party in its 2022 manifesto, the second item listed is a:

"Hate Crime Bill — to strengthen legislation on hate crimes, building on the recommendations of Judge Marrinan."

Unfortunately, it appears that, by last month, the Minister had concluded that insufficient time remains in this mandate to take forward a stand-alone Bill. She is, effectively, backing away from the commitment that she and her party have made. On 20 May, the Minister told my party colleague Matthew O'Toole:

"Whether this is stand-alone legislation or legislation that is developed by another vehicle, it will not change the import of the legislation or its implementation in the courts." — [Official Report (Hansard), 20 May 2024, p32, col 1].

We were told that that was the reality of government. The reality of government is also that we need to live up to the responsibilities of our commitments, and to deliver on the promises that have been made to the people. We have lost two years of Assembly business, which is deeply damaging to our politics, but that is no reason to step back from our commitments; it is, instead, the very reason to redouble our efforts. Although it is welcome that the Minister still appears to be committed to some elements of the hate crime legislation, I really fear that it is inevitable that provisions will be watered down or ignored completely if a stand-alone Bill is not pursued. Indeed, it appears that we would risk repeating the same failures of a piecemeal approach, which the review recommended we should avoid. It is now a genuine concern to people right across society, many of whom engaged in that review, that the review's recommendations appear to have been undermined by recent comments from the Minister. To be clear: we would not support a dilution of urgency on this issue. Our call for a stand-alone hate crime Bill is not intended to encourage the Minister to kick the issue further into the long grass, or to pass it off to her successor in the next mandate. It is up to Ministers to step up to the issues that they are charged with addressing. Of course, legislation is not the only way in which we, as an Assembly and a society, can combat hate crime. Legislation is only one part of tackling that heinous scourge. It is also crucial to change attitudes from the very earliest age through effective education. It is incumbent on a range of Departments, not least the Executive Office, through its good relations work, the review of the Together: Building a United Community (T:BUC) strategy and the racial equality strategy, to lead on that agenda. Preventative work is crucial. It cannot be solely the responsibility of any legal framework to eradicate hate crime. However, the Assembly needs to send out a very serious signal that addressing hate crime is not only the morally right thing to do but our political priority. I fear that, by stepping back from that commitment, we are sending the opposite message. I urge the House to back our motion today and oppose the amendment, which seeks to water down a commitment from the Minister. Let us all make progress, once and for all, on hate crime.

1,328 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

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