Stonewall responds to the new Home Office hate crime statistics released today
Today, the Home Office released new hate crime statistics for the year March 2024 to March 2025.
Simon Blake, CEO of Stonewall said:
“Unsurprisingly, the Home Office statistics released today show that overall hate crime continues to rise, which is damaging for our neighbourhoods, communities and society.
“Yet, these numbers don’t tell the full story for the LGBTQ+ community. Today’s headline data focuses on hate crimes reported outside of London and excludes the Met Police numbers due to reporting changes, which will inevitably affect LGBTQ+ data because of where many LGBTQ+ people live. Trust in the Police has also fallen more widely, compounding what we already know - that LGBTQ+ people often don’t report hate crimes.
“No one should have to live somewhere where they don’t feel safe. The stories we hear every day tell us that LGBTQ+ people are experiencing more hate and are living in fear, especially following the April Supreme Court judgment, a period that doesn’t fall within these statistics.
"The Government’s delivery of its commitment to make LGBTQ+ hate crime an aggravated offence can’t come soon enough.”
- Notes to editors
- This caveat has been included in the gov.uk press release: “Police forces have made significant improvements since 2014 in how they record crime. They have also improved their identification of what constitutes a hate crime. Because of these changes, police recorded crime figures do not provide reliable trends in hate crime since 2014. Figures from the police should also not be seen as a good measure of prevalence since not all hate crime is reported to them. The figures do, however, provide a good measure of the hate crime-related demand on the police.
- This data shows crimes recorded by the police between March 2024 and March 2025, so before the Supreme Court judgment.
- The England and Wales Crime Survey from 2022 to 2025 showed satisfaction levels with the police have fallen, with the latest estimates showing 40% were very or fairly satisfied with how the police handled the crime, down from 55% in the previous figures.
- This data shows that hate crimes against LGBTQ+ people have decreased – but reported hate crime is still significantly higher than it was five years ago. And we know many LGBTQ+ people don’t report hate crimes to the police.
- Many LGBTQ+ people are living in fear following the Supreme Court judgment, according to a report by TransActual a period that isn't included in this data timeframe
- The England and Wales Crime Survey from 2022 to 2025 showed satisfaction levels with the police have fallen, with the latest estimates showing 40% were very or fairly satisfied with how the police handled the crime, down from 55% in the previous figures
- Our research shows less than half of LGBTQ+ people feel safe holding their partner’s hand in public. And according to a survey by Galop, only 1 in 8 people reported their experiences to the police.
