Index/Organizations/House of Lords Library

House of Lords Library

United Kingdom parliamentary library

Fact-Checks

18 results
Dec 17, 2025
Most Viewed

What's the reported rape rate in england in 2024?

Police-recorded rape in England and Wales reached roughly 70–71 thousand offences in 2024 according to official datasets and widely‑cited compilations, but headline police counts and charity prevalenc...

Dec 3, 2025
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How did UK hate-speech arrest numbers in 2024 compare to 2023?

Official police records show police‑recorded hate crimes in England and Wales fell from 147,645 in the year ending March 2023 to 140,561 in the year ending March 2024, a 5% decrease . Separate reporti...

Dec 14, 2025
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How many UK arrests from social media posts are categorized as harassment or malicious communications?

Available reporting indicates UK police made roughly 12,000 arrests in 2023 for social-media or private-message communications captured under Section 127 (Communications Act 2003) and Section 1 (Malic...

Nov 22, 2025

How many online speech arrests were made in England in 2023 for comparison?

Available reporting from The Times and summaries by organisations and commentators put the number of arrests in England/Wales for online communications offences at about 12,183 in 2023 — roughly 30–33...

Dec 19, 2025

What are the most recent trends in reporting and conviction rates for sexual assault victims in the UK?

Police-recorded rape and sexual offence reports in the UK have risen sharply over the last two decades even as the proportion of those reports that reach charging and conviction remains very low, prod...

Dec 18, 2025

What penalties have UK courts imposed for convictions over tweets, including suspended sentences and fines?

UK courts have imposed a range of penalties for convictions arising from tweets and other social media posts: custodial sentences (including both immediate prison terms and suspended prison sentences)...

Jan 14, 2026

What recent UK cases have shaped online hate speech enforcement and sentencing?

A cluster of recent UK prosecutions — notably the first jail terms for social media posts that stoked far‑right disorder — alongside a steady stream of local magistrates’ and CPS prosecutions, have ha...

Jan 13, 2026

What legal reforms have been proposed to Section 127 and the Malicious Communications Act, and what arguments have supporters and critics made?

Reforms have aimed to replace or modernise the overlapping, vague offences in section 127 of the Communications Act 2003 and section 1 of the Malicious Communications Act 1988 with a clearer, harm‑bas...

Dec 6, 2025

What proportion of social-media-post arrests in the UK are for crimes like harassment, hate speech, or terrorism?

Available reporting shows UK police made roughly 12,000 arrests a year for “offensive” online communications around 2023, equivalent to more than 30 arrests per day, but those figures cover a broad mi...

Jan 12, 2026

How have police guidance and Crown Prosecution Service charging standards for online communications offences evolved since 2015?

Since 2015 the landscape for policing and prosecuting online communications has shifted from piecemeal statutory tweaks to a coordinated charging and prosecutorial framework: Parliament lowered eviden...

Nov 26, 2025

What are the main factors causing low conviction rates for rape in the UK?

Conviction rates for rape in the UK are widely reported as very low relative to the number of recorded offences and reports — for example one compilation cites a 2.1% conviction rate for reported rape...

Nov 9, 2025

How do rape definitions and legal thresholds differ between England & Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and EU countries?

England & Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland, and EU member states all centre rape offences on , but statutory wording, evidential rules, gender scope, and the threshold for proving lack of consent var...

Jan 12, 2026

Which UK police forces reported the highest rates of communications‑related arrests per 100,000 population in 2023, and how complete were their FOI returns?

Leicestershire police reported the highest rate of communications‑related arrests per 100,000 population in 2023 — 83 per 100,000 — according to data collated by The Times and discussed in subsequent ...

Jan 2, 2026

Which police forces record the highest rates of online‑speech arrests per capita and why?

Public reporting based on Freedom of Information responses shows the Metropolitan Police recorded the largest number of arrests for online communications offences in recent reporting, followed by West...

Jan 1, 2026

How many of those arrested for online communications in the UK were actually charged or convicted each year from 2017–2024?

Official, centrally published figures that map arrests for online communications offences onto subsequent charges and convictions year-by-year from 2017–2024 do not exist in a single public dataset, s...

Dec 4, 2025

What are the most common online speech offenses leading to arrest in England in 2024?

In 2024 hundreds-to-thousands of people in England and Wales were arrested for online communications judged “offensive,” “threatening” or otherwise unlawful under laws such as section 1 of the Malicio...

Nov 24, 2025

Which specific UK statutes were used to charge people for online speech in England during 2023?

Reporting and analysis of 2023 enforcement against online speech in England focus on a mix of longstanding criminal statutes and the newly enacted Online Safety Act 2023; major cited statutes used in ...

Nov 15, 2025

Can I have the UK policy for civil rights

The United Kingdom’s civil-rights framework is a patchwork of statutes, common law decisions and international treaties — notably the Human Rights Act 1998 that incorporated the European Convention on...