Religious Buildings: Security

(asked on 25th March 2019) - View Source

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if his Department will allocate additional funding for the security and protection of mosques and Muslim faith schools.


Answered by
Victoria Atkins Portrait
Victoria Atkins
Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
This question was answered on 28th March 2019

Last week, we announced an uplift of funding for the 2019/20 Places of Worship Protective Security Funding Scheme to £1.6 million. This is double the amount awarded in 2018/19. Under the 2016 Hate Crime Action Plan, we committed £2.4m over three years to provide protective security measures to places of worship which have been subject to or are vulnerable to hate crime attacks, and so far we have awarded grants to just under 50 mosques. The 2019/20 scheme was announced as a fourth year of funding in October 2018.


The Home Office also announced last week a new £5 million fund over 3 years to provide security training for Places of Worship in England and Wales. This will enable staff and volunteers to develop the security understanding necessary to make physical security measures work effectively.


We are already engaging with faith representatives and organisations including the Anti-Muslim Hatred Working Group, Tell Mamma and the Independent Advisory Group on Hate Crime, and will open a consultation shortly to review what more can be and should be done to protect faith communities more widely.

Reticulating Splines