Combat harassment and violence against against LGBT people

Our verdict

• This is a promise to reduce or prevent violence and harassment against groups or individuals based on their sexual orientation or gender identity, often referred to as “hate crime”, or more recently as “identity-based violence”.
• The UK hate crime action plan extended only up to 2020 and has not been replaced, but recommendations are pending from the Law Commission for reforms to hate crime legislation.  In March 2021, it was reported that three government LGBT advisers had resigned from their posts, one of them claiming the government was not “doing anything useful or helpful for trans people”. Then, in April 2021, the government’s LGBT advisory panel was disbanded, amidst controversy over perceived inaction on banning ‘conversion therapy‘. There has been no progress update under this government on the 2018 LGBT Action Plan (an update was called for in a Commons debate on 8 March 2021), and it was not even mentioned in answer to a written question on this policy in June 2021.
• Despite the inclusion of a promise to ban conversion therapy in the May 2021 Queen’s Speech, with evidence of a communication breakdown between government and members of the LGBT community on its advisory panel, until we see the government’s response to the pending recommendations from the Law Commission, the absence of a new or updated strategy focused specifically on this pledge means this policy is ‘not started’.