"Home Office Minister Fiona Mactaggart said there was much still to do to combat racially aggravated crime.

"That might be an indication that the progress we have made in investigating and prosecuting hate crime has given people greater confidence to report incidents and been effective in preventing them from happening," she said.

The period covered by the statistics pre-dates the July bombings in London last year. Separate figures for stop and searches under Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000 show 32,086 were made, an increase of 9% on the previous year.

Black people were two and a half times more likely to be stopped under the terrorism law than white people. Asian people were twice as likely as white people to be stopped."