What does the pledge mean?

Labour’s 2024 manifesto pledged to “reverse” the “decision to downgrade the monitoring of antisemitic and Islamophobic hate” which it said had been made under the Conservatives.

Based on what ministers subsequently said in written answers in Parliament, it appears to relate to non-crime hate incidents (NCHIs), though our query to the Home Office in September 2025 on what this pledge refers to was not answered.

NCHIs are incidents or alleged incidents recorded by the police which involve or are alleged to involve hostility or prejudice towards persons with a particular characteristic—such as race or religion—but which are not a crime.

These arose out of the results of the Stephen Lawrence inquiry, which called for a “comprehensive” system to record racist incidents, and are governed by the College of Policing’s guidelines, called Authorised Professional Practice.

Under the College of Policing’s guidance, NCHIs can only be recorded when an incident “disturbs an individual’s, group’s or community’s quality of life or causes them concern”.

These records can either include the personal data of the subject, or not, depending on the circumstances of the incident.

In March 2023, new statutory guidance on recording these incidents was introduced under the Conservatives amid government concern that police were “wrongly getting involved in lawful debate in this country” by recording the personal data of people whose lawfully-held views had caused offence.

This followed a case in the High Court which found insufficient weight had been given to freedom of expression in an incident involving the publication of gender critical posts on X (formerly Twitter).

This 2023 code of practice aimed to reduce the number of NCHIs being recorded by ensuring police only did so in cases where it was deemed “absolutely necessary and proportionate and not simply because someone is offended”.

It also introduced an additional test around a subject’s personal data in NCHIs, permitting police forces to record this information in NCHIs only when they appear to “present a real risk of significant harm” to those with protected characteristics, and/or “real risk that a future criminal offence may be committed” against those groups.

It appears therefore as though Labour’s pledge on antisemitic and Islamophobic hate involves reversing the Conservatives’ 2023 change to the guidance on NCHIs. But we don’t know this for certain—and the manifesto did not give any further details.

What progress has been made?

We’re currently rating this pledge as “in progress”. Guidance on non-crime hate incidents introduced by the Conservatives is set to be revoked by the Crime and Policing Act 2026, however a new standard for information recording and assessment promised by the government has not yet been published.

A review of non-crime hate incidents was announced by then-home secretary Yvette Cooper MP in July 2025, and published by the College of Policing in March 2026.

The review recommended that the Home Office should “consider whether the current Non-Crime Hate Incidents: Code of Practice on the Recording and Retention of Personal Data remains relevant” and “assess whether the current statutory guidance remains fit for purpose”.

In its response to the review, the government said it was accepting all recommendations, and that it had laid an amendment to the Crime and Policing Bill to revoke the 2023 statutory code of practice relating to the recording of NCHIs.

It said that NCHIs would no longer be recorded, and that instead “all reports perceived to be motivated by hate or hostility that meet the new incident threshold will be recorded as antisocial behaviour (ASB) with a "prejudice qualifier" added. The government also said that it would update the national standard for information recording and assessment with a “new, tighter definition of what constitutes an incident requiring police involvement”.

Under this new framework, reports will be handled through a “specialist triage process”, with reports escalated for assessment by trained hate crime specialists.

The Crime and Policing Act 2026 passed into law in April 2026, and includes measures to revoke the section of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 which legislated for a statutory code of practice relating to NCHIs. This particular section of the Crime and Policing Act has not yet taken effect—the Home Office said it will come into force once the new framework has been introduced.

As of August 2026 the updated standard promised by the government has not yet been published—the Home Office told Full Fact it is aiming to implement these changes by early 2027.

Neither the College of Policing review nor the government’s response to it mentions antisemitism or Islamophobia. When we asked the Home Office how monitoring of antisemitic and Islamophobic hate specifically would be impacted by the planned changes, it said that under the new framework police will only record non-criminal incidents where there is a clear policing purpose and evidence of a genuine risk of harm and that hate-related incidents that meet this threshold, including those motivated by antisemitism or Islamophobia, will continue to be recorded.