Earlier this month, the UK government published its community cohesion action plan Protecting What Matters, described as “a rallying call for action, setting out the first steps towards a more connected, cohesive and resilient United Kingdom”.
Why does cohesion in the UK require a rallying call? In the short term, the government has identified worrying trends relating to a rise in hate crime. The riots and unrest seen during the summers of 2024 and 2025 are a case in point, highlighting the urgent need to prevent a recurrence.
However, the long-term instincts of successive governments have been to give integration much less urgency. As it stands, the UK has no integration strategy and sets no clear policy goals. This action plan marks the first serious UK government intervention on both cohesion and integration since the 2019 Integrated Communities Action Plan. It is worth noting, that the UK is often seen positively by its international peers for its long-term track record on successful community cohesion, though they are sometimes surprised by its laissez-faire, non-interventionist approach to both cohesion and integration.
While the UK has strong anti-discrimination provisions through the Equality Act 2010, it has not systemically looked at the intersection between these inequalities, cohesion and integration.
This action plan marks the first steps in taking this policy area more seriously. In doing so, it raises important questions about the future of policy making; where do the key challenges lie, and how can we get to a better place?
The importance of working on cohesion and integration together
Whilst policymakers often use the terms interchangeably, community cohesion and integration are distinctive. One success of the action plan is in drawing them together.
In its broadest sense, cohesion focusses on the ties that bind communities together (or the absence of them) and integration on the two-way processes of mutual accommodation between newcomer and longer standing communities. Importantly, integration explicitly engages with questions of migration, whilst cohesion focusses less on the moment of arrival and more on the shared lives of communities.
UK policy making, in its focus on cohesion, has too often sidelined specific interventions on integration and their intersection with migration governance.
Putting immigration and integration policy on a more even footing
Protecting What Matters comes a week after the Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, elaborated on her plans for earned settlement, which increases the amount of time most newcomers must spend in the UK before achieving settlement. The plans outline markers of integration as a means for earning faster settlement without explaining how people will be supported in their process to, for example, improve their English or obtain a higher-paying job. As a consequence of the low policy salience of integration and the lack of a clear departmental lead on cohesion, these changes have not been viewed through the lens of their social impacts. In general, this policy area has been subservient to higher profile questions of migration governance.
As the government better defines its cohesion agenda, it sits in direct tension with Home Office plans. This is because currently the aims of migration policy (reducing numbers) supersede all other policy goals, such as supporting thriving communities. Rebalancing this relationship involves understanding the trade-offs inherent in migration policy. It also requires investing in work that can mitigate integration challenges and harness the potential contributions (economic and otherwise) of newcomer communities.
Focussing on building long-term capacity
While the action plan sets out a direction of travel for policymaking in this area, it does however raise some big questions about the capacity to deliver. Local government has some discretion over integration, but few legal duties, and remains under intense financial pressures. As argued in our Future of Welcoming briefing, formalising a cohesion duty as part of the Devolution Act and agreeing a long-term funding settlement will be a crucial next step in building a workforce able to meet the ambition of the action plan. While some funding has been allocated to cohesion and integration work, it has so far often been piecemeal, project-based and unsustainable. Our new Capacity for Welcoming project aims to address this challenge directly by working with local government to understand its needs and to develop workforce capacity across all levels of government.
Developing a more positive vision
Finally, in setting out its intent for community cohesion, the action plan treads a fine line. It needs to be clear-eyed about the very real threats to cohesion, including a serious decline in trust in institutions, while not losing sight of the everyday positive experiences of cohesion across the UK. For example, a recently published commission on social inclusion in Newham - London’s most diverse borough - highlighted the broadly positive everyday experiences of diversity, while also noting public dissatisfaction with the decline in shared public spaces. In line with this finding, the government has committed significant funding to Pride in Place, which correctly identifies the corrosive impact that decline in the public realm can have on feelings of identity and belonging. However, it will also need to ensure that it considers social as well as physical infrastructure.
The new cohesion action plan is needed precisely to create a greater sense of urgency and proactivity. This must go beyond merely reacting to ongoing threats. Instead, only by allocating long term resources, setting out clear lines of responsibility and leadership, and articulating clear and measurable policy goals can the government demonstrate it is tackling this issue with the seriousness it has lacked for too long.
