Humza Yousaf’s controversial hate crime law sees more than 7,000 complaints made in first year

By GRAHAM GRANT

Published: 20:13 GMT, 20 March 2025 | Updated: 21:26 GMT, 21 March 2025

The number of hate crime reports soared by nearly 50 per cent to more than 7,000 after the introduction of controversial SNP legislation.

New figures show a huge surge in the allegations since the Hate Crime Act – masterminded by former First Minister Humza Yousaf – was enforced from April Fools’ Day last year.

More than 150 reports were linked to transgender hate crime and most of the complaints related to race and sexual orientation, according to a new Police Scotland report.

Senior officers had warned the force risked being swamped with ‘spurious’ complaints and drawn into ‘abusive spats’ online, taking them away from fighting more serious crime.

The new hate crime law created an offence of ‘stirring up hatred’ relating to protected characteristics such as age, disability, religion, sexual orientation and transgender identity.

Last night Scottish Tory justice spokesman Liam Kerr, who led opposition to the hate crime law, said: ‘Humza Yousaf’s flawed Hate Crime Act has sadly proven to be no April Fool for the people of Scotland or overstretched police officers.

‘These figures highlight the huge number of reports recorded as a result of it and the public will question if this law has been weaponised by activists, as they feared it might be.

‘SNP ministers also didn’t help themselves by peddling misinformation about their own legislation.

‘This bad law wastes vital police resources and has a chilling effect on free speech and it was only the Scottish Conservatives who opposed it.

The new hate crime law, masterminded by former First Minister Humza Yousaf, created an offence of ‘stirring up hatred’

‘It is time for John Swinney to show some common sense and ditch Humza’s hate crime act and divert resources towards frontline policing efforts.’

Figures from April last year to January this year show 7,277 hate crimes were logged, up by around 47 per cent on April 2023-January 2024, when there were 4,963.

The Police Scotland report said hate crimes have ‘reduced steadily over the past six months from a monthly high of 939 crimes in August to a low in December of 683 crimes’.

It said: ‘This peaked in August due to community tensions relating to Operation Navette [relating to civil unrest and disorder last summer] and again in October 2024 due to community tensions relating to the anniversary of Operation Tarlac (Israel/Palestine conflict).’

It said hate crimes ‘continue to be predominantly aggravated by racial or sexual orientation’.

The majority of hate crimes related to threatening or abusive behaviour, followed by hate-aggravated conduct, and common assault.

The report said: ‘Despite the significant increase in recorded hate crimes this year the detection rate has also increased (up five per cent to 64.1 per cent).’

Last year Deputy Chief Constable Alan Speirs said the SNP’s hate crime law led to a flood of complaints by people who were ‘out to make mischief’.

He also said police could have been quicker to produce guidance for officers on the legislation.

And in May last year Chief Superintendent Rob Hay said the debate had become ‘toxic’ and ‘divisive’ as the single force grappled with a ‘flood of spurious complaints’.

He said police should be ‘pacifists in the culture war’ amid a surge in allegations of hate crime and warned that tackling hate crime was diverting stretched police resources from those who need them.

Mr Hay said: ‘The divisive, political and toxic nature of some of the debate raging in wider society is not a place policing should ever inhabit.’

A Scottish Government spokesman said: ‘Hatred and prejudice has a damaging and corrosive impact on victims and wider communities and it is vital that everyone in society feels safe.

‘Hate crime laws are being used to hold to account those commit criminal acts fuelled by hatred based on prejudice towards a person based on, for example, a person’s age or disability.’

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Humza Yousaf’s controversial hate crime law sees more than 7,000 complaints made in first year

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