Religious Buildings: Security

(asked on 5th February 2020) - View Source

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many places of worship have received funding from her Department for additional safety and security measures by religious denomination in Wales in the last 12 months; and how much each such place of worship has received.


Answered by
Victoria Atkins Portrait
Victoria Atkins
Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
This question was answered on 1st September 2020

The Places of Worship Protective Security Fund (POW) is a key commitment in the Hate Crime Action Plan published in 2016. The Scheme provides funding to places of worship that have been victims of or are vulnerable to hate crime attacks and provides for physical protective measures such as alarms, fencing and access control. The fifth year of the scheme recently closed, and successful applicants will be announced in due course.

Funding in the region of £38,500 was allocated to one place of worship in Wales in year four (2019/2020). The scheme is open to places of worship across England and Wales, and we will continue to promote the scheme across Wales for future rounds of funding.

The Jewish Community Protective Security Grant was introduced in 2015 following a series of terrorist attacks against Jews and Jewish locations across Europe. For 2019-20 a grant of £14m was provided to fund additional protective security measures, primarily guarding, at Jewish state, free and independent schools, colleges, nurseries and some other Jewish community sites, including synagogues. A grant of £14m is to be provided in 2020-21. We do not keep a breakdown of funding by region.

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