Community cohesion: The role of integration

Approximate read time: 20 minutes

On 13 March 2025, the House of Lords is scheduled to debate the following motion:

Baroness Verma (Conservative) to move that this House takes note of the role of integration in reducing barriers to community cohesion in the United Kingdom.

Although some related policy areas, specifically immigration and aspects of countering extremism, are the responsibility of the UK government, responsibility for community cohesion is devolved in the UK. This briefing focuses on community cohesion and integration policies in England.

1. What is community cohesion?

Although ‘cohesion’ refers to a tendency to unite, and within a society suggests that “different members fit together well and form a united whole”, the term ‘community cohesion’ is the subject of debate.^[1] Issues around community cohesion cross multiple policy areas including local government, education, housing and immigration policy. As explained below, there is a large degree of overlap between community cohesion and the related term ‘social cohesion’. However, this briefing focuses on community cohesion and its relationship with integration specifically.

1.1 Origins

Professor Ted Cantle, the lead author of an independent review following the 2001 race riots in England, has defined community cohesion as “a key part of understanding and responding to the changing dynamics of diversity”.^[2] He has argued policies that support community cohesion are those which seek to break down barriers between different groups within society. He contrasts this with the ‘multicultural’ approach generally adopted before 2001, which he has characterised as follows:

Prior to community cohesion, various forms of multicultural practice attempted to mediate relationships between different community interests—generally based upon ‘racial’ differences. And the ‘mediation’ largely depended upon policies of separation and separate development, with little or no attempt to build acceptance of the ‘other’, nor manage integration.^[3]

Professor Cantle has argued that in order to establish community cohesion, people from all backgrounds needed to feel “they belonged and were valued”.^[4] He also said it was important that people in a community were able to interact with others from different backgrounds to theirs in order to “break down myths and stereotypes and to build trust”.

1.2 Social cohesion: Similarities and differences

Community cohesion is similar to the broader concept of social cohesion. The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) has defined social cohesion as “the ‘glue’ that binds society together”.^[5] According to this definition, social cohesion depends on several factors such as the levels of trust and social inclusion that might exist within a society as well as the extent to which a society has shared values.

Dame Sara Khan, the author of the 2024 Khan review of social cohesion and democratic resilience in England, has noted these two terms are often used interchangeably.^[6] However, during a recent oral evidence session with the House of Commons Women and Equalities Committee, as part of its ongoing inquiry into community cohesion, Dame Sara argued the term ‘community cohesion’ was most usefully applied when considering the relationship between different groups of people at a local level. She said the term ‘social cohesion’ was a broader concept, encompassing both relationships between different groups at the local level and the relationship between the state and individuals.

Further information on the meaning of the term social cohesion specifically and how it relates to strengthening communities is provided in the House of Lords Library briefing ‘The importance of social cohesion and communities’ (29 November 2024).

2. How is integration defined?

There is no universally accepted definition of integration.^[7] However, in 2019 the then Conservative government proposed the following definition, describing integrated communities as ones “where people—whatever their background—live, work, learn and socialise together, based on shared rights, responsibilities and opportunities”.^[8]

The Home Office has published several editions of the framework for evaluating the effectiveness of policies intended to improve integration. The first edition of this framework was published in 2004.^[9] In the most recent edition of the framework, published in 2019, the Home Office argued it was important to recognise that integration is “multi-dimensional”.^[10] This means integration depends on multiple factors including access to resources, employment and educational opportunities as well as social mixing. The Home Office also argued integration should be seen as “multi-directional”, meaning it involved “adjustments by everyone in society”.^[11] The 2019 edition of the framework was compiled with the support of academics from the University of Sussex, the University of Birmingham, Ulster University, and Queen Margaret University Edinburgh.^[12]

Dame Sara Khan’s review of social cohesion recommended the government should publish a strategy on integration.^[13] However, she argued this should be separate from the government’s broader strategy for strengthening social cohesion. Dame Sara argued the term ‘integration’ was often used “as a shorthand to describe ethnic minority Britons and the need for them to be ‘integrated’, despite being citizens of third, fourth generation or beyond”.^[14] She said an effective strategy for integration should focus on helping new migrants integrate successfully when they come to the UK. By contrast, she said the wider social cohesion strategy should take “a long-term approach” to helping “established citizens and communities to live well together and be resilient to inevitable tensions that will occur from time to time”.^[15] She also argued an effective social cohesion plan should address broader issues such as “the spread and support for conspiracy theories, the challenges of misinformation and disinformation, disillusionment with democracy and a lack of trust in democratic institutions, among others”.^[16]

As discussed below, there is an ongoing debate on whether an effective integration strategy should focus primarily on the integration of migrants coming to the UK or on longer-term residents and people born in this country.

3. How are community cohesion and integration measured?

The Home Office’s 2019 indicators of integration framework notes that, in order to establish whether policies to improve integration are effective, one must refer to a range of data across areas including employment, education, housing, health and culture.^[17] It also argued the measures which might be most usefully applied depended on the specific local context.

The framework also recommended several indicators for assessing the strength of social connections between individuals and groups. One of these indicators was the proportion of people agreeing with the proposition that people of different backgrounds got on well in their local area.^[18] According to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport’s community life survey for 2023/24, which was based on 170,000 responses, 81% of adults aged 16 and over agreed with this statement.^[19] While this figure was three percentage points lower than the previous year, it has remained broadly the same over the past 10 years.

The survey did find there was some variation between different groups of respondents. For example, adults aged 16 to 24 (78%) and 25 to 34 (79%) were less likely to agree with this proposition than those of other age groups.

Figure 1. Proportion of people who agreed their local area was a place where people from different backgrounds get on well together, broken down by age

This survey also found the figure was lower among some (but not all) ethnic groups. Adults from the Gypsy or Irish Traveller (65%), Bangladeshi (76%), mixed White and Black Caribbean (77%) and mixed White and Asian (78%) ethnic groups were also less likely to report their local area was a place where people from different backgrounds got along well. However, the figure was higher for adults from the Chinese ethnic group (85%).

One of the other measures listed in the Home Office indicators of integration framework is the number of people who are able to read and/or speak English.^[20] In the 2021 census, 8.9% of people in England and Wales (5.1 million) said English (or English and Welsh in Wales) was not their first language.^[21] Of these 5.1 million people, 17.1% (880,000) said they could not speak English (or English and Welsh) well, and 3.1% (161,000) could not speak English (or English and Welsh) at all. These figures varied between local authorities. For example, the local authority with the highest proportion of people who could not speak English was Rushmoor in Hampshire (7.8%) followed by Pendle in Lancashire (7.2%) and Leicester (7%).

The centre-right think tank Onward’s social fabric index attempts to provide an overview of the strength of community life in local areas^[22] The index uses various measures including crime statistics and the quality of local infrastructure to produce an overall score for each area. It also rates areas based on the strength of local relationships using data on local participation and volunteering, and survey data on the extent to which people feel part of a community in their local area.^[23] Overall it found there was a clear urban-rural divide when it came to the strength of local relationships: local authority areas with the highest overall scores tended to be in rural areas or collections of smaller towns.^[24] However, while cities tended to have lower scores when it came to relationships, group participation in London was above the national average. It also found that there was a regional divide, with more local authorities in the south of England scoring higher than areas in the north of England.

4. Integration: Policies of the previous government

4.1 Integrated communities action plan

In 2019, the then Conservative government published its ‘Integrated communities action plan’ for England. The government said the purpose of this plan was to “create socially and economically stronger, more confident and integrated communities”.^[25] It said it would work with local authorities, as well as voluntary organisations, local businesses, schools, faith organisations and others to identify and support ways to strengthen community cohesion. As part of this plan, the government said it would provide £50mn in funding for the following programmes:

• The integration area programme, targeted at individual local authorities, addressing their specific integration issues.^[26] The local authorities receiving this support were Blackburn with Darwen, Bradford, Peterborough, Walsall and Waltham Forest.
• The integrated communities innovation fund, intended to support innovative approaches to improving integration.^[27]
• The integrated communities English language programme, to support people in communities with low levels of English speaking to learn English.^[28]

In addition to these programmes, the plan listed policies intended to support integration in schools and colleges. In 2014, the then coalition government published guidance on promoting fundamental British values in schools as part of their statutory duty to promote the spiritual, moral, cultural, mental and physical development of children.^[29] The 2019 integrated communities action plan included a commitment to continue to “support teachers to promote British values across the curriculum”.^[30] Further information on citizenship education and the promotion of fundamental British values in schools is provided in the House of Lords Library briefing ‘Teaching citizenship and life skills in schools’ (1 September 2023).

The plan also included policies intended to support the integration of new migrants coming to the UK. On migration the government committed to several policies including strengthening the language requirements for those seeking to become British citizens and revising the Life in the UK test to give “greater prominence to British values”.^[31] It also committed to improving the coordination of services for refugees in order to better support their integration in the UK.^[32] Further information on the previous Conservative government’s policies on the integration of refugees coming to the UK is provided in the House of Lords Library briefing ‘Integration of newly recognised refugees’ (15 January 2024).

4.2 Integration and countering extremism

Integration has been identified as an important element in countering extremism. For example, the 2013 report published by then Prime Minister David Cameron’s (now Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton) extremism taskforce recommended that supporting integration—especially in communities where extremism was a particular problem—was one of several ways to tackle extremism effectively.^[33] In her 2016 government-commissioned review of integration and opportunity, Dame Louise Casey (now Baroness Casey of Blackstock (Crossbench)) argued that promoting integration and tackling social exclusion were both important factors in countering extremism. She said:

Resilience, integration and shared common values and behaviours—such as respect for the rule of law, democracy, equality and tolerance—are inhibitors of division, hate and extremism. They can make us stronger, more equal, more united and able to stand together as one nation.^[34]

The UK’s current counter-terrorism strategy, CONTEST, published in 2023, notes that efforts to counter and prevent terrorism “dovetail” with other government initiatives to improve integration, social cohesion and counter-extremism.^[35] CONTEST includes the government’s Prevent programme, which aims to stop people from becoming terrorists or supporting terrorism.^[36] Further information on the policies of the previous Conservative government on preventing extremism and terrorism, including the official definition of extremism, is provided in the House of Lords Library briefing ‘Terrorism in the UK: Legislation and government strategy’ (23 January 2025).

4.3 Dame Sara Khan Review

As part of her 2024 review of social cohesion and democratic resilience, Dame Sara Khan considered the impact of the 2019 integrated communities action plan. She argued there was a lack of clarity in the plan as to whether its focus was social cohesion, integration or both.^[37] She concluded that there was not enough focus on addressing community tensions and mistrust. Dame Sara also said the strategy lacked an overarching methodology for evaluating the effectiveness of policies to improve cohesion.^[38] She noted that areas receiving support as part of the strategy had all requested better guidance on evaluation. She also said that, while some of these interventions were successful, the support needed to be longer-term, noting that once support for these projects ended, “a clear gap” had emerged and “the positive impacts [were] fading slowly”.^[39]

Dame Sara also criticised the then Conservative government’s approach to extremism, arguing the Home Office and the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities had failed to demonstrate a “strategic or comprehensive approach” to several threats it identified.^[40] These threats included what the review described as “freedom-restricting harassment”, defined as threatening, intimidatory or abusive behaviour both online and offline intended to suppress self-expression by making people or institutions censor or self-censor.^[41] Dame Sara recommended that the government should publish a five-year social cohesion and democratic resilience strategy and action plan to respond to these threats. A summary of this review’s other recommendations is provided in the House of Lords Library briefing ‘‘The importance of social cohesion and communities’ (29 November 2024).

The previous Conservative government did not publish a response to Dame Sara’s review prior to the 2024 general election. At the time of writing, the Labour government had not published a response to the review. However, as discussed below, the current government has committed to publishing its own proposals for supporting community cohesion. Responding to an oral question in the House of Commons on the review in September 2024, Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner said the review was “one element of what we need to do to get back to addressing the issues of community cohesion”.^[42]

5. Recent proposals

The current debate concerning how to best improve integration and community cohesion has been shaped by recent international and domestic events. International events include the conflict in the Middle East following the attacks by Hamas on Israel on 7 October 2023.^[43] The murder of three girls by Axel Rudakubana in an attack in Southport on 29 July 2024 and the subsequent riots in July and August 2024 have also featured prominently in the recent debate on integration and community cohesion.^[44]

5.1 Labour government

The Labour government has said it is committed to working with communities across the UK to improve understanding between people of different backgrounds and “to build a culture of cohesion, trust and mutual respect”.^[45] Responding to the riots which took place in England and Northern Ireland in July and August 2024, the government announced it would establish a £15mn community recovery fund intended to support those communities affected.^[46] Angela Rayner has said the violence “exposed deep-rooted weaknesses in our society” which she described as being caused by “division and decline, combined with rising Islamophobia and racism”.^[47] Responding to oral questions on the government’s policies for promoting community cohesion, she told the House of Commons that she was leading efforts across government and that it would outline further actions in due course. Alex Norris, parliamentary under secretary at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, has also described the government’s community recovery fund as forming the “first step” in the government’s broader strategy to improve community cohesion.^[48]

During a debate in the House of Lords on social cohesion and strengthening communities in December 2024, Lord Khan of Burnley, parliamentary under secretary at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, said the government was “developing an integrated, cohesive approach […] which will address racial and religious hatred and strengthen cohesion across all communities”.^[49] He told the House that more would be announced “soon”.

In its 2024 general election manifesto, Labour  said it would update the rules around counter-extremism, including online, to “stop people being radicalised and drawn towards hateful ideologies”.^[50] In January 2025, following the conviction and sentencing of Axel Rudakubana for murder, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer announced the government was undertaking a review of the counter-extremist system. Further information on this review is provided in the House of Lords Library briefing ‘Terrorism in the UK: Legislation and government strategy’ (23 January 2025).

5.2 Conservative Party

Leader of the Opposition Kemi Badenoch has said the UK needs an new integration strategy.^[51] In September 2024, during her campaign to become leader of the Conservative Party, Ms Badenoch said this strategy should emphasise the importance of British “values and culture”.^[52] She also said that people who come to the UK needed to demonstrate “a commitment to the UK and its people”. Specifically, she said an effective integration strategy should take into account that immigrants coming to the UK may bring elements of their culture she described as harmful, writing:

Culture is more than cuisine or clothes. It’s also customs which may be at odds with British values. We cannot be naive and assume immigrants will automatically abandon ancestral ethnic hostilities at the border, or that all cultures are equally valid. They are not. I am struck for example, by the number of recent immigrants to the UK who hate Israel. That sentiment has no place here.^[53]

Ms Badenoch has also argued the number of immigrants coming to the UK has made integration more difficult, arguing that the “pace of immigration has been too quick and the numbers coming too high for meaningful integration”.^[54]

In an interview with the BBC following the conviction of Axel Rudakubana, Ms Badenoch argued that one of the issues raised by the Southport attack was integration.^[55] Axel Rudakubana was born in the UK and his parents were migrants to Britain from Rwanda. She described him as not having “integrated into the rest of society”, stating “if you’re being inculcated in hate, you’re not integrating well”.^[56]

5.3 Other parties

In his statement following the sentencing of Axel Rudakubana, Leader of the Liberal Democrats Ed Davey said the government had an “urgent duty” to learn the lessons of what happened and “ensure a tragedy on this scale can never happen again”.^[57] On the issue of integration, Mr Davey’s party included in its 2024 manifesto a commitment to lift the ban on asylum seekers from working if they have been waiting for a decision concerning their immigration status for more than three months.^[58] The party said this would help asylum seekers to integrate in their local communities and contribute to the UK economy.

Reform UK stated in its manifesto for the 2024 election that “record mass migration” had damaged the UK and that “multiculturalism has imported separate communities that reject our way of life”.^[59] Speaking in May 2024 as honorary president of Reform UK prior to becoming leader, Nigel Farage said during an interview that a “growing number” of young Muslim men in the UK “do not subscribe to British values”.^[60] Mr Farage repeated similar comments after becoming leader of Reform UK, during an interview in September 2024.^[61]

In its 2024 manifesto, the Green Party of England and Wales said it would promote social cohesion by reforming the immigration system in order to provide greater support to migrants coming to the UK.^[62] It said it would end the hostile environment policy introduced by the Conservative government, referring to measures aimed at identifying and reducing the number of immigrants in the UK with no right to remain.

5.4 ‘After the riots’ report: Promoting integration

In their 2024 joint report, ‘After the riots: Building the foundations for social cohesion’, the campaign organisations British Future, the Belong Network, and the Together Coalition argued the government should engage with what it described as legitimate concerns regarding migration and integration.^[63] Specifically, the report said parts of the UK had experienced “rapid demographic change caused by immigration” without adequate government support to promote integration or ease increased demand on public services. The report recommended the government:

[…] should set out how the political system can make more visible and accessible opportunities to participate in the legitimate democratic debate about the choices we make on managing migration and integration. There are ‘legitimate concerns’ about how a democracy handles the pressures and gains of migration and social change, and about keeping racism, prejudice and violence out of our democratic debate. A legitimate debate about migration and integration would address both sets of concerns.^[64]

The report recommended the government should present “a clearer account of what makes inclusion and integration work, nationally and locally” and publish a national social cohesion strategy for England.^[65] Noting that violence had been targeted against Muslims as well as asylum seekers and visible minorities, the report also recommended the government should address Islamophobia by adopting a clear working definition of anti-Muslim prejudice.^[66]

6. Ongoing inquiries

In December 2024, the House of Commons Women and Equalities Committee launched an inquiry into community cohesion.^[67] The terms of reference for the inquiry include consideration of how community cohesion should be assessed. The committee is also looking at the primary barriers and threats to community cohesion. At the time of writing, this inquiry is ongoing. In addition to its oral evidence session with Dame Sara Khan, the committee has received written evidence from organisations including the Local Government Association, the Football Association, the PSHE [Personal, social, health and economic education] Association and others.^[68]

Two former secretaries of state who have had responsibility for community cohesion in the past, John Denham and Sir Sajid Javid, are currently leading an independent commission on community and cohesion.^[69] John Denham was secretary of state for communities and local government from June 2009–May 2010, in Gordon Brown’s Labour government. Sir Sajid Javid was secretary of state for communities and local government from July 2016–January 2018 and secretary of state for housing, communities and local government from January 2018–April 2018 in the Conservative government led by Theresa May (now Baroness May of Maidenhead).

7. Read more

• House of Lords Library, ‘King’s Speech 2024: Home affairs’, 12 July 2024
• Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology, ‘Extremism and hate crime’, 7 October 2024
• Policy Institute at King’s College London, ‘What works in social cohesion and overcoming tensions: A rapid evidence assessment to inform Dame Sara Khan’s independent review of social cohesion and resilience’, March 2023
• Institute for Community Studies and the Bennett Institute for Public Policy, ‘Social infrastructure: International comparative review’, January 2023
• Local Government Association, ‘Community cohesion, inclusion and equality’, accessed 5 March 2025

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Cover image by MetsikGarden on Pixabay.