Religious hate crime has surged across England and Wales, with Home Office figures showing the number of recorded offences now hitting a record high.

Offences have risen by a staggering 40 per cent over last year, the highest rise of all the five categories monitored – race, religion, sexual orientation, disability and transgender.

More than half of the religiously-motivated attacks were directed at Muslims, with the next most targeted group Jewish people.

Altogether just over 94,000 hate crimes were recorded by police in 2017-18, around seven per cent of which had more than one motivating factor – for instance a crime could be motivated both by the victim's race and religion, the Home Office said.

While religious hate crime has seen the sharpest increase, at nine per cent of the total it is dwarfed by the the number of race hate crimes, at over 71,000 or 76 per cent.

Increases in hate crime during the last five years have been driven by improvements in crime recording by police, the Home Office report says. However, it adds there have 'spikes in hate crime following certain events such as the EU referendum and the terrorist attacks in 2017'.

The report covers April 2017 to March 2018, which includes the Islamist attacks in Manchester, London Bridge and Parsons Green, as well as the far-right Finsbury Park attack.

The Home Office report deals with incidents reported to the police. The Crime Survey for England and Wales, a broader measurement that includes crimes not reported, appears to show hate crimes decreasing by about 40 per cent during the last decade.