I think we should start this debate by saying what is true: that we live in a much less prejudiced society today than 50 years ago, when I was young, and that’s a very good thing. I approve of the Government’s strategy on hate crime and I appreciate the tone in which the Cabinet Secretary started off this debate. But one thing that does concern me about debates on hate crime is that we tend to get it out of perspective.

Hate crime is, of course, abominable, and I speak as a victim, because I once had my nose broken when I went to the aid of a gay friend of mine who was being attacked by homophobic thugs, and the perpetrator of that crime subsequently went to prison on account of it. I’ve also been on an IRA list for quite a number of years, and therefore I was under threat of being murdered. So, I do understand what hatred is all about when you encounter it in a real sense. But we have no far-right party today that is active in British politics of any size. The British National Party has disappeared, the English Defence League is insignificant, and I think we should celebrate that. We don’t have the problems that some European countries have, and therefore we shouldn’t get this out of perspective.

I think we have to accept, also, that the figures that are reported as hate crimes really tend to exaggerate the extent of the problem. Mark Isherwood referred, in the course of his speech, to the fact that it’s the perception of the victim that matters, not the actual reality, necessarily. The definition in the Home Office operational guidance, which is accepted by police forces in Wales, is that, for recording purposes, the perception of the victim, or any other person, is the defining factor in determining whether an incident is a hate incident. So, even a third party can report a hate crime as such, and it will instantly be logged by the police as a hate crime, even in cases where the victim himself or herself may not have wished it to be so. There’s an actual example in the police operational guidance, actually, which is, I think, quite instructive:

‘A heterosexual man walking through an area near a gay club is verbally abused in a way which is offensive but does not constitute a public order offence. He reports the incident but does not believe it to be homophobic, or want it recorded as such,’ but the officer taking the report down can himself record that as a hate crime even though the victim doesn’t want to, and the perception of the victim is not to be challenged in any way. Now, I accept that if there is a challenge to be made, then it should be done in a sensitive manner. But, surely, we must base public policy upon actual facts and not just upon perceptions.

The other point that I want to raise in this debate is the attempt to use this issue of hate crime in order to grind political axes. We often hear it related to Brexit, and we often hear it raised in connection with people who believe that it’s very important for the purposes of community cohesion that we should have sensible controls on immigration. I think that this demeans us, actually, and reduces the value of our political debate. Surely we can accept that, if you are concerned about immigration, you are not necessarily a racist, and you certainly don’t believe that hate crime is a good thing. Of course, there are racists who want to control immigration for their base reasons, and there are people in all political parts of the spectrum, just about, who are engaged in political abuse. I have, from time to time, been the recipient of it myself. Anybody who wants to know what online abuse is about should go and see what’s written about me, which often invites me to perform various physical acts that are not within my physical capabilities, or indeed anybody’s, for that matter.

So, I’m well aware that, if you take these things seriously, it can be very hurtful. In politics and public life, we tend to be pachyderms, so we can brush this sort of thing off. In what you might call normal society, we may not find that quite so easy to accept. So, I agree very much with what Hannah Blythyn said in her contribution—that this is all about basic respect for individuals and their differences. I don’t believe that people should be abused or subject to physical violence simply on account of personal characteristics that they can’t alter—or, indeed, for their political beliefs.

In winding up, I will say that, of course, we are happy to note the motion and, indeed, as I’ve already said, to support the Government’s strategy overall. We will not support the Plaid Cymru amendments. We are going to abstain on those, because I think they are drafted in rather a tendentious way, and that goes back to what I said at the opening of my speech. I haven’t time, I’m afraid, to dilate further upon that today. But I think that there is widespread acceptance—universal acceptance—of the general principles that underlie the Government’s policy, and we will support them in that endeavour.