“Hate crimes” against those who identify as LGBT are set to become aggravated offenses under a proposed U.K. law.
An amendment to the Crimes and Policing Bill, currently progressing through the House of Lords and not yet law, would make crimes “aggravated” if the victim is perceived to be targeted because of their “sexual orientation,” “gender identity,” or disability, and will carry a higher penalty.
The LGBT activist group Galop celebrated the introduction of the bill, describing it as a “landmark moment.”
According to the BBC, the bill seeks “to introduce measures to tackle crime and antisocial behavior” in England and Wales.
This change would bring so-called “hate crimes” based on homosexual inclination and “gender identity” in line with religion and race, which already carry heightened, defined charges such as “racially-aggravated disorderly behavior.”
The amendment was put forward by Labour MP Rachel Taylor, who said she was “absolutely delighted” by the “vital change in the law,” adding that “this represents a great stride forward in equality for disabled and LGBT+ people.”
She noted that between March 2024 and 2025, over 30,000 “hate crimes” against people in England and Wales were recorded by police on the basis of “sexual orientation,” “gender identity,” or disability.
However, according to the U.K.’s Home Office Report of hate crimes between March 2024 and 2025, the vast majority of so-called “hate crimes” against LGBT-identified individuals are non-violent. Only seven percent of “hate crimes” against people based on their sexual inclinations were categorized as “violence against the person with injury,” and 14 percent as “violence against the person without injury.”
Forty-nine percent of “hate crimes” were so-called “public order offences,” which are non-violent crimes that cause fear, alarm, distress, or disorder in a public setting. This could include speech “crimes” like that of a Christian pastor, Dia Moodley, who was recently arrested in Bristol for peacefully street preaching on transgender ideology and Islam.