The Online Safety Bill: A reading list
This briefing provides a selection of reading on the Online Safety Bill.

This briefing paper looks at Hate Crime in England & Wales using figures provided by the Crime Survey of England and Wales (CSEW) and the Police Recorded Crime Series. The paper also presents data on hate crime rates per 100,000 population in each police force area and for each hate crime strand. It also looks at similar figures in Scotland and Northern Ireland. The tables that accompany the briefing paper are currently being updated.
Hate Crime Statistics (2 MB , PDF)
Police recorded crime figures in 2020/21 show that there were 114,958 offences where one or more of the centrally monitored hate crime strands were deemed to be a motivating factor. This represented a 9% increase on figures for 2019/20. Including the GMP, there were 124,091 offences.
The increase in police recorded hate crime over time has partly been attributed to better recording methods used and greater awareness in reporting hate crimes.
Since April 2015, there have been spikes for racial or religiously aggravated offences not matched by their non-aggravated equivalent at the time of the EU referendum, 2017 terrorist attacks and 2020 Black Lives Matter protests. Though there were similar spikes in the following and preceding summers, the trends were similar for the two types of offences.
The highest rate of hate crimes for all offences recorded by the police per 100,000 population in 2020/21 was in the West Yorkshire police force area (374).The lowest rate was found in North Yorkshire (82). The rate for England and Wales including the British Transport Police was 208.
West Yorksire and Greater Manchester were the only police forces to appear amongst the 10 highest rates recorded for each hate crime strand.
Hate Crime Statistics (2 MB , PDF)
This briefing provides a selection of reading on the Online Safety Bill.
This briefing paper summarises the Commons stages of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill and the Lords amendments to the Bill.
The House of Lords has proposed changes to the Government's judicial review reforms. MPs will consider them on Tuesday 26 April 2022.