Asked by: Baroness Gohir (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many applications were shortlisted and interviewed for the Combatting Hatred Against Muslims Fund; what was the total scores for each application; and how many applications were presented to the Minster for Faith, Communities and Resettlement, Lord Khan of Burnley, to consider.
Answered by Lord Khan of Burnley
The Combatting Hatred Against Muslims fund received 34 applications between 02 April and 18 May. Three applicants were shortlisted and interviewed, including the British Muslim Trust, and formal advice was presented to ministers for final decision following assessment and scoring. Applications were assessed against 16 criteria which can be found on the fund’s prospectus - Combatting Hate Against Muslims fund: prospectus - GOV.UK. The British Muslim Trust was named as the preferred bidder on 21st July 2025.
Asked by: Baroness Gohir (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask His Majesty's Government what was the total score awarded to the application of the British Muslim Trust to the Combatting Hatred Against Muslims Fund.
Answered by Lord Khan of Burnley
The Combatting Hatred Against Muslims fund received 34 applications between 02 April and 18 May. Three applicants were shortlisted and interviewed, including the British Muslim Trust, and formal advice was presented to ministers for final decision following assessment and scoring. Applications were assessed against 16 criteria which can be found on the fund’s prospectus - Combatting Hate Against Muslims fund: prospectus - GOV.UK. The British Muslim Trust was named as the preferred bidder on 21st July 2025.
Asked by: Baroness Gohir (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many applications for funding were received for the Combatting Hatred Against Muslims Fund by 18 May.
Answered by Lord Khan of Burnley
The Combatting Hatred Against Muslims fund received 34 applications between 02 April and 18 May. Three applicants were shortlisted and interviewed, including the British Muslim Trust, and formal advice was presented to ministers for final decision following assessment and scoring. Applications were assessed against 16 criteria which can be found on the fund’s prospectus - Combatting Hate Against Muslims fund: prospectus - GOV.UK. The British Muslim Trust was named as the preferred bidder on 21st July 2025.
Asked by: Baroness Gohir (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the answer by Lord Khan of Burnley on 13 March (HL Deb col 821), how they will allocate the remaining £350,000 of the £1 million committed to programmes to combat hatred against Muslims, following the allocation of £650,000 to the British Muslim Trust; and what plans they have to allocate these remaining funds to Muslim communities.
Answered by Baroness Taylor of Stevenage - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
As per the Combatting Hate Against Muslims fund: prospectus - GOV.UK, the allocated funding for the Combatting Hate Against Muslims fund was £650,000 for financial year 2025/26.
The government will announce other measures to support community cohesion, including for Muslim communities, in due course.
Asked by: Baroness Gohir (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what estimate they have made for the years 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024 of the proportion of anti-social behaviour recorded by police which is (1) associated with racism, (2) associated with religious hatred, and (3) associated with religious hatred towards Muslims.
Answered by Lord Hanson of Flint - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office collects and publishes information about the number of anti-social behaviour incidents recorded by the police in England and Wales on a quarterly basis. However, information about whether these incidents were associated with racism or religious hate is not separately identifiable.
Asked by: Baroness Gohir (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government how much funding was allocated to the Protective Security for Mosques Scheme in (1) 2022–23, (2) 2023–24, (3) 2024–25, and (4) 2025–26; how much funding was utilised in each of those years; and how any unspent funds were used or reallocated.
Answered by Lord Hanson of Flint - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Protective Security for Mosques Scheme was introduced in 2024/25. Funding allocated for protective security at mosques and Muslim faith schools under the scheme in 2024/25 was £29,400,000, of which the full allocation was issued.
Asked by: Baroness Gohir (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of whether Black, Asian and minority ethnic women are over-represented in female domestic homicides between 2022 to 2025.
Answered by Lord Hanson of Flint - Minister of State (Home Office)
We are committed to developing the evidence base to improve our understanding of the triggers and causes of deaths related to domestic abuse, including for women from minority ethnic groups. This includes funding research by the National Police Chiefs’ Council’s Domestic Homicide Project, which captures information on domestic abuse related deaths from all 43 polices forces across England and Wales and provides information on the ethnicity of both victims and perpetrators. The most recent report was published in March 2025: https://www.vkpp.org.uk/vkpp-work/domestic-homicide-project/.
Domestic Homicide Reviews (DHRs) also allow for in-depth learning from these deaths. The Domestic Homicide Review Library holds all published DHRs to allow for more analysis of patterns and trends of domestic homicides and all deaths related to domestic abuse going forward.
Later this year, we will publish a new cross-government strategy on halving Violence Against Women and Girls Strategy in a decade, which will set out the steps we are taking to prevent domestic abuse related deaths.
Asked by: Baroness Gohir (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of whether Black women are over-represented in female domestic homicides from 2022 to 2025.
Answered by Lord Hanson of Flint - Minister of State (Home Office)
We are committed to developing the evidence base to improve our understanding of the triggers and causes of deaths related to domestic abuse, including for women from minority ethnic groups. This includes funding research by the National Police Chiefs’ Council’s Domestic Homicide Project, which captures information on domestic abuse related deaths from all 43 polices forces across England and Wales and provides information on the ethnicity of both victims and perpetrators. The most recent report was published in March 2025: https://www.vkpp.org.uk/vkpp-work/domestic-homicide-project/.
Domestic Homicide Reviews (DHRs) also allow for in-depth learning from these deaths. The Domestic Homicide Review Library holds all published DHRs to allow for more analysis of patterns and trends of domestic homicides and all deaths related to domestic abuse going forward.
Later this year, we will publish a new cross-government strategy on halving Violence Against Women and Girls Strategy in a decade, which will set out the steps we are taking to prevent domestic abuse related deaths.
Asked by: Baroness Gohir (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of whether Asian women are over-represented in female domestic homicides from 2022 to 2025
Answered by Lord Hanson of Flint - Minister of State (Home Office)
We are committed to developing the evidence base to improve our understanding of the triggers and causes of deaths related to domestic abuse, including for women from minority ethnic groups. This includes funding research by the National Police Chiefs’ Council’s Domestic Homicide Project, which captures information on domestic abuse related deaths from all 43 polices forces across England and Wales and provides information on the ethnicity of both victims and perpetrators. The most recent report was published in March 2025: https://www.vkpp.org.uk/vkpp-work/domestic-homicide-project/.
Domestic Homicide Reviews (DHRs) also allow for in-depth learning from these deaths. The Domestic Homicide Review Library holds all published DHRs to allow for more analysis of patterns and trends of domestic homicides and all deaths related to domestic abuse going forward.
Later this year, we will publish a new cross-government strategy on halving Violence Against Women and Girls Strategy in a decade, which will set out the steps we are taking to prevent domestic abuse related deaths.
Asked by: Baroness Gohir (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many calls the ACAS helpline received in each year between 2016 and 2024; of those, how many and what percentage of calls were about religion and belief; and how many and what percentage of calls were received from those who identified as Muslim.
Answered by Baroness Jones of Whitchurch
Between the years 2016 and 2024, the Acas helpline received the following numbers of calls. Acas’ data on calls is not broken down into different religions and beliefs.
Year | Number of calls | Calls related to religion and beliefs | Percentage of helpline calls on religion and beliefs. |
2016 | 960,400 | 1,262 | 0.13% |
2017 | 776,400 | 977 | 0.13% |
2018 | 710,000 | 843 | 0.12% |
2019 | 784,000 | 1,084 | 0.14% |
2020 | 750,100 | 805 | 0.11% |
2021 | 662,200 | 1,002 | 0.15% |
2022 | 640,200 | 1,009 | 0.16% |
2023 | 621,500 | 1,121 | 0.18% |
2024 | 569,300 | 1,179 | 0.21% |