Labour to overhaul non-crime hate incident rules

The government is to change when police forces in England and Wales record non-crime hate incidents (NCHIs), in a bid to end the policing of "everyday arguments".

New Home Office guidance will say that forces should only log incidents that are potentially "relevant to policing".

It comes after a review by police chiefs found the system, developed in the mid-2000s, had increasingly seen officers drawn into policing debates on social media.

However the Conservatives say the move from Labour ministers does not go far enough, calling it "simply a rebrand".

NCHIs are recorded when police receive a report perceived by the caller to be motivated by hate or hostility towards people characteristics such as race or gender, but which does not meet the bar for prosecution under hate crime laws.

Though they are not crimes, NCHIs stay on police records and can be disclosed during enhanced background checks when applying for certain jobs.

Police guidance on the recording of NCHIs was first published in 2005, following recommendations by an inquiry into the murder of black teenager Stephen Lawrence in a racist attack in 1993.

They were originally intended to help forces gather intelligence to prevent crime, and safeguard vulnerable people.

But in a report published on Tuesday, the body representing police chiefs will say their use has become disproportionate in recent years, and the definition should be redrawn to reflect the social media age.

The review, conducted alongside the College of Policing, said that officers were increasingly being drawn into "policing the online space" and existing guidance on recording them, dating from 2011, should be redrawn.

It found that around 30,000 NCHIs had been recorded by forces between 2022 and 2025, with spikes around the time of "major events, such as the Hamas attacks in Israel on 7 October 2023".

Under the proposed update, incidents would only now be recorded if they "may be relevant to policing for preventing or solving crime, safeguarding individuals or communities or fulfilling other statutory policing purposes".

It also said forces should narrow the circumstances in which they are logged on police databases - something that can generate a crime reference number.

The review recommends a new "triage system" to help call handlers assess whether incidents need to be logged, backed up by specialised training, and a new AI tool to "help officers navigate legislation and guidance".

It also says the circumstances in which NCHIs can be disclosed to employers during enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) checks should be reviewed.

The Home Office said it had accepted all the recommendations of the review, adding that the move was aimed at ending "the policing of everyday arguments".

It has yet to specify when the new changes will take effect. The review concluded that "full implementation" of the changes is expected in early 2027.

Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said the overhaul would mean that officers would "no longer be policing perfectly legal tweets" and would have more time to patrol streets and catch criminals.

But the Conservatives have questioned the impact of the proposed changes, describing them as "simply a rebrand of non-crime hate incidents with a more restrictive triage process".

"Officers and staff will still be tied up monitoring incidents that do not meet the criminal threshold, at a cost in time and resources," added shadow home secretary Chris Philp.

The Conservatives introduced new legal guidance in 2023 in a bid to restrict the recording of NCHIs for "trivial" incidents.

Labour has begun the process of scrapping this in anticipation of the new definition coming into effect, with a Home Office minister arguing earlier this month the Tory guidance had "not provided the clarity needed".

Under Kemi Badenoch, the Conservatives have said they would only allow senior officers to record NCHIs if they feel it would help with preventing or investigating potential crimes.