FM rejects claims of hate crime law ‘shambles’

Humza Yousaf has rejected claims that Scotland’s new hate crime law will be a “shambles from day one”.

Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross said police could be “swamped” and innocent people would be investigated.

“People like JK Rowling could have police at their door every day for making perfectly reasonable statements,” he said.

But the first minister said freedom of speech was protected, and the problem was hate crime itself, not the law.

The Hate and Public Order (Scotland) Act – which comes into force on 1 April – criminalises threatening or abusive behaviour which is intended to stir up hatred based on certain characteristics including age, disability, sexual orientation and transgender identity.

Mr Yousaf claimed a lot of “disinformation” was being spread through social media and inaccurate reporting about a law which had been thoroughly scrutinised by parliament.

A similar offence which covers stirring up hatred based on race had been on the statute book since 1986 without problems, he told MSPs at First Minister’s Questions.

“If I have the protection against somebody stirring up hatred because of my race – and that has been the case since 1986 – why on earth should these protections not exist for someone because of their sexuality, or disability, or their religion?” he said.

Douglas Ross asked if a two-hour online training course for police officers was adequate for such complex and controversial issues.

Quoting a leading lawyer, he said there was “a danger of the police being swamped by completely malicious complaints” and the law was a “disaster in the making”.

“It is set to be a shambles from day one, in just 11 days time,” Mr Ross said.

But Mr Yousaf, who shepherded the law through parliament when he was justice secretary in 2020, said it contained a “triple lock” to protect free speech.

The threshold for threatening behaviour had been set “incredibly high” to ensure innocent people were not criminalised,” he added.

“What’s dangerous isn’t the law – what’s dangerous is hate crime in our society,” Mr Yousaf told MSPs.

Scottish Labour’s Pauline McNeill asked for assurances that police would be properly resourced and trained so that the act worked as intended, without being used for malicious complaints.

Mr Yousaf said training was an operational matter but he had confidence in Police Scotland, and said officers had, for many years, effectively enforced the stirring-up hatred offence in relation to race.

SNP backbencher Ivan McKee criticised a Police Scotland information campaign which he claimed stereotyped young working class men as most likely to commit a hate crime.

Mr Yousaf said the whole point of the hate crime act was not to pit communities against each other.