Ministers are considering further extension to disability hate crime laws, after pledge on ‘aggravated’ offences

The government is considering whether to strengthen disability hate crime laws even further, after ministers agreed to make a long-awaited improvement that will mean longer sentences for offenders.

Home Office minister Diana Johnson announced last week that the government would act to extend the law so that standalone “aggravated offences” would apply to disability hate crime and hate crime motivated by sexual orientation or transgender identity.

She said the government would add an amendment to the crime and policing bill to make this change when it reached its committee stage in the House of Lords, keeping a pledge made in Labour’s general election manifesto last year.

This would mean an offender could be charged with an offence – such as assault, harassment or criminal damage – that was aggravated by hostility towards a disabled person, and they would then face a tougher sentence if convicted.

At present, aggravated offences only apply to racial and religious hostility, and a disability hate crime can only be addressed by a court during sentencing, where the sentence can be increased if prosecutors can prove the offence was motivated by disability-related hostility.

The move was proposed in an amendment to the crime and policing bill by Labour’s Rachel Taylor, who told fellow MPs last week that the current discrepancy “cannot be right”.

She said: “We cannot say, as a society, that some forms of hatred are more evil than others.”

The amendment was supported by disabled Labour MP Marie Tidball, who said the “opportunity to legislate to strengthen the law on hate crime offences must be seized”.

Disabled campaigners have been calling for the change for more than a decade.

But one leading campaigner said the government needed to go much further.

The aggravated offences change was recommended by the Law Commission in December 2021, but it also made two other key recommendations to strengthen disability hate crime laws.

It called for existing offences of stirring up hatred, which only apply to race and religion, to be extended to disabled and LGBT+ victims.

And the Law Commission also said an offender should be found guilty of a disability hate crime offence if they had been “motivated” by “hostility or prejudice” towards disabled people, rather than – at present – only by hostility.

Dr David Wilkin, a disabled activist, researcher, author* and support worker for survivors of disability hate crime, welcomed the move to extend aggravated offences.

But he was critical of the continuing refusal – following years of resistance from Conservative governments – to implement the two other Law Commission recommendations.

He said: “Now, with the perfect opportunity to bring disabled people into the 21st century by establishing legislative equality, they are choosing once again to make sure that disabled people are treated differently, with their hopes and needs once again relegated.

“Hate crime campaigners have looked forward to disabled people being offered the same rights as other protected groups in new legislation.

“But now, having reached this timely and convenient critical moment, the Labour government are deliberately excluding those with the greatest needs from attaining simple, fair, and much needed equality.”

The Home Office has told Disability News Service that it will be considering these two further recommendations carefully.

A Home Office spokesperson said: “This government has committed to making our streets safer for everyone and nobody should ever be harmed because of who they are.

“Criminals motivated by racial or religious hate already get tougher sentences.

“Now we are making sure thugs who carry out vile attacks against someone based on their sexual orientation, transgender identity or disability will also spend longer behind bars.”

*Disability Hate Crime: Perspectives for Change, is published by Routledge

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