Select committee: Women and Equalities Committee
Recommendation 23
10th Report – Discrimination, harassment and abuse against Muslim women
Published 30 Jan 2026
Addressed to Government Equalities Office
Women and Equalities Committee Gendered Islamophobia All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Recommendation (the committee's words)
The Government should publish a new hate crime action plan with a dedicated focus on tackling the intersectional abuse of Muslim women. This plan should include mechanisms on how to increase reporting and guidance on how public services should respond to intersectional abuse, including abuse directed at Muslim women. Affected minority groups, especially those who experience intersectional abuse, including Muslim women, should be consulted on the development of the updated plan. The plan will need to ensure that support mechanisms do not inadvertently reinforce stereotypes about what it means to be a Muslim woman. (Recommendation, Paragraph 102)
From: Women and Equalities Committee, 10th Report – Discrimination, harassment and abuse against Muslim women (HC 571), 30 January 2026
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 12 May 2026 (deadline 30 March 2026).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The government welcomes the Committee's inquiry and sets out existing and planned action across media, policing, employment, health, online safety, schools and community programmes, agreeing with some recommendations, noting others, and declining to commit to further online transparency powers at this stage.
- On Law Commission hate crime recommendations, the government is "considering the 34 recommendations" and says it has "already taken steps on implementation where appropriate", citing an amendment to the Crime and Policing Bill.
- On mayors, it "agree[s] with the Committee" that they are well placed to promote the reporting service, and "will write to all UK Mayors" encouraging them to promote it.
- On online abuse, it points to an existing statutory review of the Online Safety Act and says it needs to be "confident of where regulation is working" before introducing new measures.
- On schools, it will convene a "Tackling Anti-Muslim Hostility Roundtable" as a first step, and will procure and publish further anti-Muslim hostility resources on Educate Against Hate "in the next financial year".