The way police responded to the riots that swept the country last summer was “entirely appropriate”, a parliamentary report has found.

MPs considered accusations that the riots were policed more strongly than previous protests, but said that claims of “two-tier policing” were “baseless”.

Parliament’s home affairs cross-party select committee published the report on Monday into the police response to the disorder that broke out across the country after the murder of three girls at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in Southport on 29 July.

Axel Rudakubana, then 17, was jailed for a minimum of 52 years earlier this year for the murders of Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, Bebe King, six, and Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, and the attempted murders of several more adults and children.

The report found there was no evidence of “two-tier policing” in the way officers responded to violence and criminality that erupted in Southport and later elsewhere, branding the claims as “disgraceful”.

“This was not protest,” MPs said. “Those participating in disorder were not policed more strongly because of their supposed political views but because they were throwing missiles, assaulting police officers and committing arson.

“It was disgraceful to see the police officers who bore the brunt of this violence being undermined by baseless claims of ‘two-tier policing’.”

During the riots, police officers were attacked, while shops, businesses, communities centres and libraries were damaged. Mosques and hotels housing asylum seekers were also targeted.

“Organised disorder is rightly met with a robust response; any implied equivalence with planned non-violent protests is simply wrong,” committee chair Dame Karen Bradley added.

By 22 January, 1,804 arrests had been made and there were 1,072 charges from the disorder, with the majority for serious public order offences, the report said.

In total, there were 246 protests, counter-protests and incidents of disorder, with 88 seen as “significant”, and many resulting in disorder, it added.

It was the worst violence seen in Britain since the 2011 riots, and the committee of MPs urged the government to release funding to forces to cover costs incurred during the disorder, which the National Police Chiefs’ Council estimated amounted to more than £28m.

The MPs also called for the government to focus on retainment and recruitment of police officers, as many had suffered injury and trauma during the riots.

“Police forces did their best to ameliorate the impact on officers,” the report said, “but it is clear that the disorder has had a detrimental effect at a time when many officers were already struggling with heavy workloads, fatigue and stress.”

The parliamentary committee agreed with findings from His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services, which had found that police forces should have better anticipated the risk of disorder. It also found there were gaps in intelligence linked to social media and the dark web.

MPs also said the criminal justice system had failed to keep pace with the social media age, which created an information vacuum that “allowed disinformation to flourish” in the wake of the Southport attack, with false reports that the perpetrator was an asylum seeker fuelling the violence.

The MPs also noted that the Crown Prosecution Service and Merseyside police were ultimately limited in what they could publish about the suspect, because the Contempt of Court Act 1981 prevents the publication of information that could prejudice criminal proceedings.

They welcomed a review into the law by the Law Commission, which is considering “whether there should be contempt of court liability for those who risk prejudicing a criminal trial by releasing information in the interests of public safety or national security”.

“It is a grim reality that bad actors sought to exploit the unspeakable tragedy that unfolded in Southport,” Bradley added. “The criminal justice system will need to ensure its approach to communication is fit for the social media age.

“Lessons must be learned from how the whole criminal justice system worked together. It will need to ensure that police forces can improve how they deal with regular policing work as well as supporting them to develop capacity to respond to crises.”

“It is always important that we always learn lessons, and we are working closely with policing to improve national decision making, and to ensure that officers get the support they need to keep our streets safe,” a Home Office spokesperson said.

“We also agree social media has put well-established principles around how we communicate after attacks like this under strain, and we must be able to tackle misinformation head on.”