Oh dear. As the furore around Scotland’s Hate Crime Act extends into its sixth day, there are now fears about police spending as the force looks set to struggle with the sheer volume of complaints. It is understood that, since the Act was implemented on Monday, 40 officers a day have been required to work overtime to help tackle reports. With officers being paid time and a third for working extra hours, there are concerns about overstretching the Police Scotland budget. What a mess…
Over 3,000 hate crime complaints were submitted in the first 24 hours of the Act and the Scottish Tories have predicted that at this rate, over 1 million reports could be made in the first year of the new law – though Mr S rather doubts the rate of complaints will continue at the same pace.
A major issue with the new law is that while Police Scotland said last month that it would not investigate certain minor crimes any longer, the force is having to look at every single report made under Humza Yousaf’s Hate Crime Act. Police training has been rather disorganised, prompting fears that an already overstretched and under-resourced force will reach ‘breaking point’, in the words of Scotish Police Federation general secretary David Kennedy, who warned that the new law ‘has just piled on the pressure’.
The Scottish government has so far continued to support the controversial new law, while other parties have made some subtle u-turns. Though she voted in favour of it initially, Alba’s Ash Regan is now calling for the law to be repealed while Labour’s Anas Sarwar says he would amend the Act if he was first minister. Will Yousaf now concede that his hate law has thrown the country into chaos? Don’t count on it…
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