Integration and Community Cohesion

Lord McInnes of Kilwinning Excerpts

Thursday 13th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord McInnes of Kilwinning (Con)]

My Lords, I begin by thanking my noble friend Lady Verma for bringing this very important and timely debate before your Lordships’ House. Her own personal testimony got us off to a very strong start and set the tone for an excellent debate. It has also been my great privilege to hear the maiden speeches of the noble Lords, Lord Raval and Lord Rook. I am sure everyone in the Chamber looks forward to the tremendous contribution they will make to your Lordships’ House in the coming days, weeks and years—decades, hopefully.

On Saturday I happened to be in Glasgow, when the first council-organised St Patrick’s Day parade was being held in the city centre. It seemed to be a well-supported and joyful event. Why is that relevant to today’s debate? The noble Baroness, Lady Hazarika, has already alluded to this. It is relevant because of what the noble Lord, Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale, referred to as Scotland’s shame: the sectarian and divided society in the west of Scotland that has taken almost 150 years to get to a stage where suspicion and division between communities is still being overcome. It serves as a warning as to how difficult it is and long it takes to fix these issues.

The subject is sensitive and thought-provoking and, particularly given that I describe myself as a liberal Conservative, needs to be wrestled with. As a liberal and a Conservative, I celebrate difference, and I also respect faith and tradition. I believe in faith schools and the celebration of cultural diversity. There are many people in this country who do not belong to any community, and nor do they have any sense of national identity. That is a great sadness. I apply that equally to people whose families have been here for many generations and to those who have been here for one generation.

As someone who wants the UK to be a confident, free society, I also believe there are five important principles that would ensure that we aspire to be a fully functioning nation state. First, to succeed in this country, all people, from every community, should be encouraged and supported to speak English, to avoid the very exclusion that the noble Baroness, Lady Verma, mentioned. Secondly, the law of the land should be applied equally, irrespective of race, sex, religion or any other characteristic. Thirdly, rights that protect individuals—whether women’s rights, children’s rights, rights to free speech, or rights to property and to free elections—should apply to every UK citizen. Fourthly, there should be a national narrative that we can all engage with, just as every other successful country has. That is the inclusive patriotism that the noble Baroness, Lady Bottomley, mentioned. Living in the UK has to be about more than just being domiciled here and being able to make money here. Finally, the state has a responsibility to ensure that its population—from every community—has the opportunity to excel. Importantly, life cannot be isolated within particular communities, especially as young people grow. Suspicion and distrust so often come from a lack of mixing of young children.

I am sad to say that a major obstacle to some of these five principles being implemented has been an excess of cultural cringe among many who would consider themselves strong supporters of integration and cohesion. They believe that it is easier to spend huge amounts on translation rather than English classes, and that it is outdated and cringeworthy to try to celebrate what makes the UK a great and distinct country. In the area of law, that political correctness has crossed the line from ensuring that all are equal to some being more equal than others. I commend the Government on their recent stance on sentencing.

It has also become fashionable to believe that it is wrong for to children mix through national voluntary programmes, because it is somehow coercive or old-fashioned. I am not saying that we want to apply a beige, monochrome, old-fashioned sense of Britishness, and that the diversity that makes us so strong should be ignored. But we live in a country called the United Kingdom for a reason. It is a nation state made up of four nations, and in the 21st century the four nations contain numerous, strong, healthy and diverse communities.

As I have already said, it is actually a greater threat to our country that so many people in the UK have no sense of community, whether that be cultural, religious, familial or national. I was appalled when commentators began to discuss whether prominent politicians from a non-white background could be English, British, Welsh or Scottish. We cannot enter into a reductive argument about individual race or religion. It is far more important that people from every background feel that they are accepted as British, irrespective of the community, or non-community, they come from.

There is no simple route to integration. It is about a delicate balance underlined by principles of equality and the contract between the citizen and the state while recognising and celebrating difference. How will that balance and equilibrium be supported through policy? The west of Scotland is an example of how long that community integration can take.