THE WELSH GOVERNMENT has been called upon to take more positive steps to tackle hate crime in Wales.
The earnest and consensual tone of the debate was, however, undermined afterwards by a furious attack on a Plaid Cymru amendment by UKIP.
In a Senedd debate on Tuesday, October 17, members debated the impact of hate crime in Wales’ communities and progress being made to stem the tide of prejudice and violence.
The debate took place against the background of National Hate Crime Awareness Week.
‘UNNOTICED CRIMES’ TO BE TACKLED
Moving the substantive motion, Communities Secretary Carl Sargeant said: “All hate crimes are abhorrent. We have seen a number of awful incidents across the UK this year, and I would like again to extend my sympathies to the victims, their families, and everyone affected.”
The Communities Secretary continued to state that while large hate crimes took the headlines, the Welsh Government was also committed to tackling the sort of hate crimes which happen on a smaller scale ‘which often go unnoticed in the wider world’.
In the previous year, Mr Sargeant reported that the figures for hate crime show that 2,941 hate crimes were reported in Wales during 2016-17, which is a 22.3% increase on 2015-16. However, while he was disappointed by the increase, which he explained was attributable to ensuring that such offences were reported and catalogued correctly, he explained that more victims were encouraged to come forwards than hitherto.
Mr Sargeant sounded a warning note of ‘real concern at the rising number of hate crimes committed last year’, including racial abuse; people being shouted at simply for speaking a language other than English—in some cases where the language being used was Welsh; and even of disabled people suffering abuse on buses and trains.
79% RISE IN RACE HATE CRIMES
Responding for the Conservatives, Mark Isherwood revealed to members that overall, police-recorded hate crimes in England and Wales in 2015-16 increased a further 19%, with 79% being race hate crimes.
In July to September 2016, police-recorded hate crime increased 52 per cent in Dyfed Powys to 35 incidents, 22% in north Wales to 56 incidents, 22% in Gwent to 77 incidents and 10% in south Wales to 276 incidents.
Police-recorded hate crime figures in England and Wales published this weeks show a further 29% rise in 2016-17.
Mr Isherwood said: “Home Office statisticians say that this is thought to reflect both a genuine rise in hate crime and ongoing improvements in crime recording by the police.
“Last month, new research showed that the number of lesbian, gay and bi people in Wales experiencing hate crime had jumped from 11 per cent in 2013 to 20 per cent this year.”
PLAID AMENDMENT ‘TENDENTIOUS’
Plaid Cymru’s Bethan Jenkins moved an amendment to the motion that called on the Welsh Government to tackle the ‘radicalisation of white men into far right groups’.
While that amendment did not cause a great deal of debate on the floor of the Senedd, although Neil Hamilton from UKIP suggested although he and his party broadly supported the Welsh Government’s efforts there was an ‘attempt to use the issue of hate crime in order to grind political axes’ and described Plaid’s amendment as ‘tendentious’.
After the debate had concluded and the motion passed – including the Plaid amendment – Mr Hamilton’s response and that of his party was a little less measured and far more direct.
SINGLING OUT WHITE MALE RACISTS UNFAIR
A statement from UKIP claimed that ‘Plaid Cymru are once again burying their heads in the sand of Islamic political extremism’.
The statement continues: ‘Plaid Cymru’s amendments are an attempt to divert attention from the main practical problem. By singling out white men, they are also targeting individuals on a racial and gender basis’.
Focusing on the headline events instead of the detail of the motion reporting hate crimes at the local and community level as in the debate, the statement says: ‘The facts show that Islamist terror poses the largest threat to our communities and that should receive the bulk of police and intelligence resources.
‘The activities of individuals and groups described by Plaid Cymru as “far right” cannot be ignored but they are peripheral to the main risk to our safety and liberty posed by ISIS and other so-called ‘Islamic’ groups’.
UKIP Group Leader Neil Hamilton commented: “Plaid Cymru needs to wake up and stop making excuses for politicised Islamic extremism. Political correctness blinds Plaid Cymru to the real threat to British liberal values and undermines the protection of our way of life from those most ready and willing to destroy it.”
The fact that the hate crime debate referenced the increasing number of small incidents of criminal behaviour that targeted people on the basis of their difference from others that took place in small communities, towns, and cities across Wales and was not about terrorism was not mentioned in the release. The fact that those incidents usually – but not always – consisted of racial abuse directed at minorities was also not mentioned.
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