Social Cohesion and Community during Periods of Change

Baroness Porter of Fulwood Excerpts

Friday 6th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Porter of Fulwood (Con)]

My Lords, there is now clear evidence that social cohesion is important for a plethora of outcomes, from life expectancy and health to fostering a sense of belonging and improving people’s well-being and mental health. This is a timely debate. The most reverend Primate the Archbishop of York is right to note the current context of underlying fragility that people feel in the wider world around them. Others in this debate, including my noble friend Lord Sharma in his excellent maiden speech, have referenced the importance of this global context.

I will make three points. First, what is clear is that this is an area where a lack of consistent measurement and data is holding back progress. We know something about the various components that feed in here; many have been spoken about already. For example, income levels, employment rates and access to quality schools are all important. Similarly, we are all very familiar with some of the challenges that the digital innovations of recent years have brought about, altering significantly the dynamics of how people interact in both positive and negative ways.

The think tank Onward has done excellent work in this area, looking in detail at social trust specifically. What is striking from its research is just how inadequate talking about this is when focusing primarily on a national pattern. Adjacent neighbourhoods can have incredibly contrasting levels of trust; for example, Sheffield, which was scored in the research as the most unequal local authority in England, had net trust scores ranging from 29% to minus 31%. More needs to be done to draw all these different threads and variables of research together in a comprehensive way. I urge the Minister to consider what more the Government can do to measure and track, on an ongoing basis, social cohesion and the strength of community life in the UK.

Secondly, from what data is available, there are some clear implications for policy, and we should take note of them. We should do more to look at how social connection can be fostered as a test of policy. This is as important as addressing downstream impacts such as loneliness. As Onward’s work has shown, this means looking at policy that drives strong local relationships, as well as positive social norms, reducing levels of crime and increasing democratic participation. It means that we also need a significant hyperlocal strand to policy interventions around trust. Linked to that, we should consider the role that the charitable sector plays in creating strong, supportive communities and do more to ensure that it can thrive. The potential impact of the Budget announcement about national insurance contributions has been raised many times in this House, including today, and is a serious concern. The Government need to make scaling capacity in the charitable sector a priority.

A long-standing issue in the sector that many, including the Centre for Social Justice, have called out is around addressing contracting decisions for the provision of social services. It is still the case that small and medium-sized charities can struggle to compete with larger organisations, and that a greater focus on things such as multiyear certainty would help. There is more that local and national government can do to ensure that small and medium-sized charities are given a greater proportion of the funding than currently. A review of capacity building in the sector should also look at leveraging more private philanthropy and consider match funding, as well as the role of clusters, centres for excellence and incubators.

Thirdly and finally, given its importance, this is an area that does not get the attention it should in our national discourse. I pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton for his focus on the big society and the work he did in attempting to get people talking about strong community and why it matters. This is not just a matter of policy; it requires a cultural rethinking of what we value as a country. We need to talk about the importance of social connection, understand it and value it.