A record amount of security funding has been issued to mosques in the UK via a government scheme to protect places of worship from hate crime.
According to figures obtained by the Guardian via freedom of information requests, almost £3m was issued to mosques and associated sites under the places of worship security scheme from April 2022 to April 2023, a significant increase from the just over £73,000 issued between 2016 and 2017.
There has also been a significant increase in the number of eligible security applications made to the Home Office from Muslim community sites, from 36 in 2016 to 304 from April 2023 to April 2024. These figures do not reflect the number of applications approved by the Home Office.
The UK’s largest Muslim body, the Muslim Council of Britain, welcomed the increase in the amount of funding issued but said the scheme was “failing to capture the true scale of the challenge”, particularly due to the record rise in incidents of Islamophobia in the UK after the 7 October attacks on Israel.
The national monitoring group Tell Mama UK said it recorded 4,971 incidents of anti-Muslim hate between 7 October 2023 and 30 September 2024, the highest total in the past 14 years. The almost £3m in security funding was issued to mosques in the UK before the 7 October attacks.
Although the data reveals more than 304 eligible mosques and associated Muslim faith institutions applied for protective security in 2023, it remains a relatively small proportion of the more than 2,000 mosques and prayer rooms thought to be in the UK, according to the website muslimsinbritain.org.
Zara Mohammed, the general secretary of the MCB, described the low take-up for the scheme as indicative of ”the inadequacy of current engagement efforts”.
She said: “Many mosques aren’t even aware this funding exists due to minimal outreach. Those who’ve applied before and been unsuccessful often don’t reapply. The application process itself can be a barrier – technical jargon and language barriers make it challenging for voluntary organisations.”
The government launched a protective security scheme for places of worship in 2016 before creating a dedicated scheme worth £29.4m for mosques and faith schools in 2023 to provide security to ensure the safety of Britain’s Muslim communities.
A separate government scheme for assisting the Jewish community was set up in 2015 with £18m dedicated to security funding to protect Jewish communities in 2023. The government says the scale of funding is determined by the number of community sites used by each faith.
Mohammed said there needed to be a review of the existing process due to fears that at-risk Muslim faith institutions were missing out on security funding.
This risk was heightened when mosques across the UK were targeted after a knife attack in Southport, after false news spread online claiming the perpetrator of the attack was a Muslim asylum seeker. As a result, the Home Office set up a rapid response process to provide extra security and support for Muslim communities.
Mohammed said: “We need a comprehensive review of the scheme that addresses three critical areas: why take-up remains so low despite the clear need, whether current funding levels are sufficient given recent far-right riots, and how we can better understand the true scale of risk given widespread under-reporting.”
Kamran Hussain, the chief executive of the British Muslim Heritage Centre, said the far-right riots indicated why security for mosques was so essential. “It was inevitable that with the Islamophobia we are seeing, that there should be an increase in the level of protection around Muslim institutes and mosques,” he said.
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Hussain said his colleagues who applied for security funding for the heritage centre after the riots described the process as “very easy”.
“They put security in place who are constantly here, 24 hours, to make sure everything is OK,” he said. “We have had one phone call, a bomb threat, in the last two weeks so it shows the sentiment that’s out there and the risks.”
Mohammed said the far-right riots were “a stark reminder of the very real threats our mosques face”. She said: “Without adequate protection, these community centres remain vulnerable to attacks, vandalism, and violence. The government’s response must match the severity of these threats.”
A Home Office spokesperson said: “It is paramount every community feels safe, especially in places of worship. That is why we introduced the protective security for mosques scheme.
“In response to public disorder in August we introduced a rapid protective security response process for places of worship and we have provided additional security for hundreds of mosques across the country.”