My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Russell, for his very clear introduction and explanation, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bull, for her description of misogyny.
As we have heard, the amendment would require guidance to take account of the role that hostility against a particular sex plays in domestic abuse cases. It would also require the police to collect data on the number of relevant hate crimes based on sex and on how many of them are misogyny or misandry related. As the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, said, the picture is patchy to say the least.
The problem is that currently all but four police forces do not record crimes based on misogyny or misandry, although I totally accept the wise words of the noble Lord, Lord Russell of Liverpool, about how the picture needs to be built up. As the noble Lord, Lord Young, said, another seven forces are thinking about recording such crimes, but there are 43 police forces in total, so we can hardly get a picture of what is happening and of the contribution that these crimes make to domestic abuse in particular. In order to be able to measure and interpret trends in hate crimes, we must have the information; otherwise, how can we know what we are dealing with and how can we build that picture?
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So far, I totally support the amendment and agree that recording cases of misogyny can really help the police to build up a picture of abuse. But I just wonder why, in the last line of the amendment, a definition of “sex” has been considered necessary. The terms “sex” and “gender” are interchangeable across English law, so why have the drafters of the amendment seen fit to throw in a definition of “sex”? I have just a twinge of anxiety that the trans community might feel excluded, and this legislation must be inclusive. After all, trans women can be victims of misogyny just as much as any other type of woman, so any definition of sex for the purposes of this clause must be trans inclusive, which is the default position for all our laws. Therefore, although I totally agree that misogyny should be recorded
as a hate crime, as that would play a very valuable role, I hope that that anxiety will be assuaged; otherwise, I may not be able to support the amendment.