Integrated Communities

Monday 11th February 2019 Written Statements

[The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (James Brokenshire)]

Britain is a great place to live and is made stronger by its diversity. However, the benefits and opportunities of our society are not felt equally by everyone. No community should feel excluded, and everyone should understand and embrace the benefits and opportunities of living in modem Britain.

In March 2018, the Government launched a consultation on the Integrated Communities Strategy Green Paper to obtain the views of the public and organisations on its ambitious goal to build integrated communities where people—whatever their background—can live, work, learn and socialise together based on shared rights, responsibilities and opportunities. The consultation ran for 12 weeks in total and closed on 5 June 2018.

I am today publishing the Government’s response to this consultation. The consultation process considered the Government’s proposed actions as laid out in the Integrated Communities Strategy Green Paper and presented a number of questions about the Government’s strategy for consultation. There were over 3,400 responses to the consultation, reflecting the high level of interest in building integrated communities. A breakdown of the responses to each of these questions can be found in the Government’s response.

The Government have taken the views expressed in the consultation into account when developing our next steps. These are set out in the integrated communities action plan I am also publishing today. This outlines more than 70 actions across Government to help create strong and integrated communities. This action plan will build the capacity of our leaders, strengthen our communities, boost English language proficiency, and give people the infrastructure they need to thrive. The views of communities will continue to be an important factor when implementing these actions.

The action plan sets out a framework of national priority actions to promote integration and adopts a localised approach. As the Secretary of State for Communities, one of my priorities is to help build thriving, liveable and resilient places where people get along—from our high streets to our community spaces.

I am placing a copy of both documents in the Library of the House.

[HCWS1321]