Religious Buildings: Security

(asked on 27th March 2019) - View Source

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how much Government funding is allocated to the protection of (a) mosques, (b) synagogues, (c) churches, d) Hindu Temples, e) Gurdwaras and (f) other places of worship.


Answered by
Victoria Atkins Portrait
Victoria Atkins
Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
This question was answered on 4th April 2019

Under the 2016 Hate Crime Action Plan, we committed £2.4m over three years to the Places of Worship Protective Security Funding Scheme to provide protective security measures to places of worship who have been victim of or are vulnerable to hate crime attacks. Last week, we announced an uplift of funding for 2019/20 of the scheme to £1.6 million. This is double the amount awarded in 2018/19. Following the Finsbury Park terror attack in June 2017, we also announced a one year £1m fund to protect vulnerable faith institutions.

Both the Places of Worship Protective Security Funding Scheme and the Vulnerable Faith Institution Scheme are/were open to Christian, Muslim, Sikh and Hindu faiths. There are no specific allocations of funding per faith group, with decisions on funding being based on eligibility criteria and the recommendations of the multi-faith independent advisory panel (with security expertise).

We provide funding for the security of Jewish sites separately through the Jewish Community Protective Security (JCPS) Grant, which is delivered by the Community Security Trust. Funding to synagogues is allocated on a risk assessed basis, and is as follows:

2015-16 - approx. £800k
2016-17 - approx. £900K
2017-18 - approx. £1.3m

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