Lord Paddick (Non-Afl)

My Lords, as I said earlier, I am a paid adviser to the Metropolitan Police. However, I have not discussed this subject with the police; these are my personal views. With regard to Amendments 406 and 407, from my operational policing experience I know that the proportion of transgender men and women in the general population is very small. The proportion of offenders who are transgender is even smaller, and the number of transgender people who are convicted of violence is tiny. The number of criminal offences committed by transgender people is neither statistically nor operationally significant for the police. On victim data, the most important operationally useful data for the police in relation to hate crime is how the victim identifies themselves. For other offences, it is what motivated the assailant—that is, what did the assailant perceive the victim to be? Did the assailant perceive the person to be female, in which case it is misogyny? Did they perceive the victim to be transgender, in which case it is transphobia? The birth sex of the victim is not that operationally significant for the police, nor is it likely to be statistically significant.