Good afternoon. Welcome to the Women and Equalities Committee. Today we will be having two panels. The first panel will look at the experience of Muslim communities in the UK, including Islamophobia and anti-Muslim hatred. Panel two will look at community cohesion more broadly, by examining real or perceived barriers to cohesion between different ethnic and religious groups and non-religious groups, and community cohesion throughout the UK. On Teams we have Dr Naomi Green, who is assistant secretary-general from the Muslim Council of Britain, and we have Professor Javed Khan OBE, managing director of Equi. In the room with us we have Akeela Ahmed MBE, co-chair of the British Muslim Network. Thank you so much for your patience in reorganising this session. I am very grateful to you all. I am going to hand over to Catherine.

I echo the Chair’s sentiments: thank you very much for coming a second time to our Committee. My first question is for you, Akeela, please. How would you describe the current situation for Muslims in the UK and how that has evolved over the last few years?

Good afternoon and thank you for inviting me. In terms of the situation for British Muslims, it is fair to say that especially since the riots last summer in 2024, many Muslims are feeling anxious, fearful and on edge. I would like to highlight particularly British Muslim women and young Muslim people, and especially those who are visibly Muslim: people who basically wear their faith on their head, if you like. I wear a hijab; you can see that I am Muslim. They are easily identifiable as Muslim and they are the targets of hate crimes, unfortunately. Since the riots, and even before then, we have seen an increasing issue around Islamophobia. Islamophobia is increasing, not decreasing. The stats recorded by the police capture only the hate crimes that are reported to the police and that meet the threshold for a hate crime. There is a whole range of hate incidents that occur that women and young people are experiencing that, first, are not reported to the police and, secondly, if they are reported to the police, are not recorded as a hate crime. My sense is that beyond the statistics, the issues that people are dealing with are much worse than what we see in the data. Communities, and especially those at grassroots level, are really dependent on local authorities and local structures to feel safe and to feel that they are able to report the incidents that they are dealing with, including schools and universities. Unfortunately, what we have seen is that these structures are not equipped to deal with the increase in Islamophobia that people are experiencing. This is compounding the sense of isolation that people are experiencing and the sense that there is nowhere to go to if they are experiencing any kind of hate crime or Islamophobia. There is a sense that Government have been slow to tell people what they are going to do post-riots, how they are going to address what happened during the summer last year, and how they are going to address the very strong anti-immigrant sentiment, the very strong anti-Muslim sentiment, and the racism. People are waiting to hear from Government on what they are going to be doing, and that has not been forthcoming. Within the public discourse, there has been for a long time a latent anti-Muslim narrative bubbling under the surface. This has come much more to the fore, and we saw that with the riots. That has not gone away; just because the riots took place, it does not mean that people now think we need to be more nuanced and measured in the way that we talk about British Muslim communities and other minority communities, including refugees and asylum seekers. In fact, that has increased and has added to the sense of isolation. Women, especially, are telling me that they are dealing with a whole raft of microaggressions, from buses not stopping for them to not being served in the shop when they are out and about. That means that women, and therefore their connected families and connected communities, are adjusting the way they go about their daily lives, basically.

There will be opportunity obviously for more a bit later, but I just wanted to take that up with Dr Green. Do you have any examples of specific impacts that the summer riots had on Muslim communities?

The summer riots were really a culmination of something that has been growing, as has already been said. Islamophobia is the lived reality for Muslims across the UK, particularly visible Muslims, and particularly Muslim women. It is not unusual to be called names in the street. People have rolled down their windows and shouted things out the window, and you just have to get on with it and get back to work, or go back as if nothing has happened. This is the lived experience of so many people. What happened during the summer really intensified that. There is also a sense in the media that it is an old news story, something that happened last summer, not realising that it has an ongoing impact. There are still women in my community who do not feel safe to go to the park with their children, or who still do not feel safe to leave their homes. There are people who have decided to move from the areas in which they live. Just this week we saw the horrific attack in Watford on the graves of mainly women and children. Again, that is an extension of the normalisation of Islamophobia in the UK, because the root causes were not adequately dealt with in August. It has continued, and it has probably even grown since August, online. There has been a normalisation. Even some of your colleagues within Parliament have said things that inflame tensions, rather than promoting cohesion between communities and tackling some inflammatory language and sensationalist media that has fed into them, particularly on social media. We urgently need action on Islamophobia. We cannot hesitate. This has become quite critical, because I hear different stories from people every day. The summer was incredibly intense, but, although we do not have the riots and that immediate urgency now, the normal level of Islamophobia has increased since August 2024.

Coming now to Professor Khan, the majority of Muslims in the UK are from a minority ethnic background. Can you share how racism and Islamophobia are interacting or have interacted?

First, I would agree with what both Akeela and Naomi have said in answer to your first question about how the situation has evolved. There are a couple of things that I did not hear them mention, which I would like to mention if I can. First, the persistent economic disadvantages are still around, and these have been long-standing. For example, discrimination in employment remains a significant issue, where people are not getting shortlisted simply because of a Muslim-sounding name.

Sorry, Professor Khan, can I just stop you there? Is there a way for you to move slightly closer to your microphone at all, please?

The volume seems to be low. I can barely hear you as well. I do not know what the issue is. I shall try to speak louder; I will use my teacher voice.

That would be perfect. We also have bells to contend with at the moment, so that would be great.

I shall speak up. I was talking about persistent discrimination in employment, which remains an issue and should not be forgotten. Secondly, I was just going to mention the issue of how public attitudes towards Muslims have worsened due to media portrayals and political rhetoric linking Islam to extremism. That has had a significant effect as well, whether it is connected to the summer riots or more generally. Although we have more people now active in political and civic engagement from the British Muslim community, there is still a significant under-representation in those fields, in other leadership roles, and in the public policy discourse. In fact, my organisation Equi, created last year, was established specifically to try to do something about that, by influencing public policy on behalf of British Muslims. It is still an issue. Coming back to your specific question about Islamophobia and racism, there is a key weakness in current thinking; there is a rather rigid distinction between race and religion, which is not helpful, and it risks overlooking how Muslims are racialised. Islamophobia is not simply about a theological opposition. It is about perceived Muslimness, which is intrinsically tied to racial and ethnic markers, which are exhibited in a whole range of ways, and it would be good for the Committee to look into and delve deeper. Muslims in the UK have a racialised identity, particularly those from south Asia, or of middle eastern and African descent. They are frequently targeted because of their skin colour or because of their clothing, whether it is a hijab, or their beard like mine, or other traditional attire. Non-Muslims are also targeted because they are perceived to be Muslims. Sikh men, for example, Arab Christians, and others mistaken for Muslims have been attacked. Islamophobia is often driven by racialised perceptions, rather than a religious critique. Hence the need to connect Islamophobia with racism in its broadest sense. There are parallels with other communities as well, of course, like, for example, the approach to antisemitism. Judaism is a religion but is also regarded as a race. Islamophobia functions in the same way, targeting a racialised identity rather than just a belief system.

Akeela, I have just a very quick question. You mentioned hate crime reporting. I am very aware that hate crime is often not reported, but you also mentioned it being reported, but not as a hate crime. Is that down to the way the individual is reporting, or is that down to the interpretation of the police receiving the report?

It is a mixture of both. I am aware that two or three years ago in Nottingham, there were some hate incidents that Muslim women experienced. When they reported it to the police, they felt that the police were not taking it seriously. This is not just in Nottingham, but in other places. Often people have been told that the police have bigger issues to deal with other than hate crime. Sometimes people report something and the intersection that Javed has just described, of somebody’s faith and their ethnic or racialised identity, is obviously conflated. Somebody will present with an intersection of being called the P-word, but a Muslim P-word, for example, and then the police will not record this properly. When the victim later hears back, they will hear that the police did not record it properly. There are lots of different issues in underreporting. One of them is around a lack of understanding when police receive hate crime reports, but also when sometimes local agencies receive reports. If a school receives a report, what happens to it? Is it dealt with appropriately? Also, often people are just being turned away or not taken seriously.

Professor Khan, you talked about there being an increase in Islamophobia. You talked about some very real-life incidents that we heard from Dr Green as well. What role is social media having on Islamophobia within the UK, including through online abuse?

We all have to accept that Islamophobia does not develop in a vacuum. Media and social media have had, and continue to have, a profound effect. For example, the spread of Islamophobic misinformation has bred conspiracy theories and fake news about Muslims, which circulate widely online. It fuels hostility and fear. Many Muslims face harassment, abuse and threats on social media platforms—online hate is the description. Social media algorithms tend to reinforce those echo chambers, exacerbating polarisation between communities, including British Muslims. However, on the positive side—it is worth balancing the argument—in terms of counteracting Islamophobia, social media also provides a platform for Muslim voices and a platform for interfaith dialogue, if used correctly. Grassroots activism against Islamophobia can also be shared through social media, particularly when those kinds of debate and dialogue do not get enough airtime on mainstream media.

Dr Green, you were nodding through what Professor Khan said there. What role do you think online content or online communities have in increasing prejudice towards Muslims?

Just to speak to what Professor Khan said, Muslims are racialised and Islam is raced. A lot of the discourse online is based on racist stereotypes. It is certainly not a theological debate; it is very much about stereotypes and conspiracy theories. One of the scary things, particularly as a mother, is the exposure at a very young age of Muslim children to the kind of narratives about them as a threat, as a fifth column, as not really being British, questioning their very identity. Our children are very comfortable in their British Muslim identity. It is not a debate for them, but they see other people questioning that very openly. You do not have to go down some dark corner of the internet. You just need to open up the comments section of any mainstream news outlet and you will see the comments there. You will see the comments under very mainstream stories. Recently, in Birmingham, we saw lots of Muslim communities coming out and doing lots of fantastic work to clear the streets, but underneath the stories you see these comments. It is definitely feeding into hysteria. It is feeding into this misinformation and disinformation, which are sometimes then brought into the real world. People are more likely to say things to Muslims in real life if they have normalised that hate. There was recently a case here where a friend of mine did some work for a local charity, and an individual had gone online, seen a lot of information about Muslims online, filmed the charity that she had been working for, and issued a death threat saying they wanted to shoot her in the bleep head because she was a Muslim who was active. Excuse my language, but this is the level of hate and normalisation that the internet can bring. It is a very specific example, but it is not an isolated one. There needs to be a greater effort to counteract these narratives, because at the moment, it seems that there is very little done in order to prevent this from spreading.

Akeela, we heard from a previous panel, from CST and Antisemitism Policy Trust, that they used to have fairly good engagement with being able to take antisemitic material down from places like Facebook and YouTube and others, but they found it increasingly difficult on X. For example, I think at one stage one of the witnesses said they just do not even bother anymore. Dr Green has just said that there needs to be much more done to counter this. Have you experienced any change in the last few years, for example, in the online space, particularly in social media for Muslim users?

Yes, definitely. The riots were started by misinformation being spread on X and other platforms. Telegram, specifically, was used very heavily by the people who took part in the riots—I do not want to call them protestors—to organise themselves and to start going out in different parts of the country. Previously, at Twitter/X, there were people you could raise issues with around anti-Muslim hatred and Islamophobia. Now, there is no one who will respond when raising these kinds of issues. Similarly, Meta has had a change in policy over the last few months, and it is also now very difficult to speak to and get in touch with. In the past, research and academics have shown that Facebook has been a platform where people—I am talking about the US now—have organised protests to be held outside mosques. Facebook groups were being used to do that. Facebook is another platform where people will do this kind of organising, where there will be these echo chambers, where they will spread misinformation and anti-Muslim hatred. There are no checks, no accountability, and no sense of how people as individuals can report it or even engage at a higher level, from a policy point of view. Social media companies do not seem to be taking their responsibilities seriously. In the run-up to the Online Safety Act 2023 being brought in there was more openness, but things have changed since then.

Yes, I can echo that sentiment. I would say that my Facebook is going down the same cesspit as X, unfortunately.

Professor Khan, you mentioned a rigid distinction between race and religion. I want to know what your thoughts are on whether a definition of Islamophobia or anti-Muslim hatred would be helpful.

A widely accepted definition is essential. I would suggest—[Inaudible.]

Professor Khan, your sound is dropping in and out.

I would offer four reasons for why a definition is essential in the UK. First, I would say protection. A definition would help law enforcement track and combat Islamophobic hate much more effectively than currently happens. Secondly, for policy developers, government agencies would then have a clear framework to address systemic discrimination against Muslims. Thirdly, I would say for public understanding it is vital as well, because the definition would help distinguish between what is a legitimate critique of Islam, which I don’t think Muslims have any issue with, and what is discrimination against Muslim people, which we should all have an issue with. Finally, I would say there is also international precedent that we should build this on. Other countries and organisations like the United Nations, the EU, and Canada have already accepted formal definitions of Islamophobia.

Do you think that there is a risk that any definition of Islamophobia might impact freedom of speech?

If crafted well, I don’t think so. I can give you my own personal opinion as a British Muslim: I have no issues with freedom of speech. We have to operate within the British law. A carefully crafted definition that offers protection and offers clear definition that we can all hold on to, which can influence the way that the police, the NHS, schools and other public bodies operate, should not impinge on freedom of speech. It is more about protection for those who are currently suffering.

I agree with what Javed has said. A definition would also help bring about clarity. Any definition of anti-Muslim hatred or Islamophobia would be a working definition. It would have a non-statutory basis, so it would not be a legal definition, but it would bring about clarity of when people are straying into bigotry, hatefulness, prejudice and discrimination, and when they are not. It would also bring about clarity for freedom of speech; that would help. It would bring about some consistency as well. At the moment, different organisations and institutions have their own definition, which works for them, but there are differences across the board. Somebody who is going to a particular university in one part of the country might be able to have some recourse if they experience Islamophobia at university, whereas another student at another university will not have that recourse because their university might not have a definition of Islamophobia. They might not have the same level of understanding. A definition would be very helpful.

I will come to you if I may, Akeela. How would you assess the work of Government and local authorities in combating anti-Muslim hatred and promoting community cohesion? What more do you think they need to do?

I will deal with community cohesion first. I briefly touched on this in my earlier answer, but basically there is almost a postcode lottery when it comes to community cohesion; there are differences around the country. Since the riots, MHCLG had put in a certain amount of funding towards community cohesion, and this was delivered via local authorities. Now, if I speak to people in Middlesbrough who are working at the grassroots level, especially Muslim women, they will say they are still wondering what is happening to that funding. They do not know what is happening to it. Another example is in Walsall. There are grassroots community organisations that are getting funding not from Government, but from other places. They are trying to engage local structures—the police commissioner, the local authorities—around building their understanding of Islamophobia and anti-Muslim hatred and what they can do to tackle it at a local level. They are finding that there is a lack of engagement by local authorities. There is an issue around community cohesion where, at the moment, the structures are all delivered through local authorities, and then there are issues at that local authority level. It is a different story, for example, in Nottingham and maybe other places. There is a lot of pressure on local authorities at the moment, and so there is a role that central Government can play in terms of ensuring that local authorities prioritise it. Similarly on Islamophobia and anti-Muslim hatred, again, it is a postcode lottery. From speaking to practitioners around the country, there are huge differences in local authorities’ understanding of what Islamophobia and anti-Muslim hatred are. They might have a particular understanding from the political side—depending on the make-up of the population and the politicians in that area—but not from the delivery side: how to actually help people feel protected and know where to report Islamophobia or racism, and how to actually address some root causes and bring communities together, reducing the misperceptions and the stereotypes that exist. There is a much bigger role to play for schools and universities. I have heard from a lot of university students who have experienced Islamophobia and anti-Muslim hatred, especially since the increase post the 7 October atrocities, and there is just nowhere for them to go to report what they are experiencing. If they report it, it is not understood, not heard and not dealt with. Similarly in schools, there is a lack of policy and understanding around anti-Muslim bullying and the racism that young people are dealing with, especially if they are dealing with it on the way to school or on the way home from school. Just before 7 October, I held a focus group with young people across London. Many of them said that they were dealing with racism and Islamophobia. They were being called terrorists, they were dealing with bullying, and it was actually coming from adults. This was when they were travelling to school and from school, so on public transport. When they would tell their teachers at school, the teachers would say, “Well, this happened outside of school, so we’re really sorry that you’ve experienced this, but we don’t know how to help you.” There are lots of areas and ways a Government could do more to address Islamophobia and anti-Muslim hatred.

Thank you for sharing that. Professor Khan, if I could come to you, what do you think are the most effective ways to combat Islamophobia?

Having worked in central Government and local government for a number of years, one of the things I learned over that time is that to get those organisations to respond best, you need very practical, measurable interventions. That focuses the mind. I would suggest a number of very practical things that they should be doing—this could be Government or local councils, something easily adaptable. First, hate crime reporting and response: are hate crimes against Muslims being properly documented? What is the follow-up as a result of that? Secondly, I would say the level of representation and inclusion of Muslims in decision-making processes—not just laissez-faire consultations and the odd circulars that are sent out, but serious inclusion in the development of local policymaking and decisions. In terms of community engagement, I would ask whether councils are promoting and funding interfaith and intercultural initiatives, because there is lots of research out there that shows that that kind of local activism actually helps support community cohesion. It tackles Islamophobia as well. Are public policies helping to reduce discrimination or are they actually reinforcing Islamophobic biases? That needs to be monitored actively and reported upon, I would say, on an annual basis. Are the councils investing in anti-discrimination programmes, for example, in education, school-based awareness programmes and college level? There is a great example I have come across called The Linking Network, which began in Bradford. You may have heard of it. It works really hard, and it has expanded further now. It links schools, children and young people from different races and cultures and supports teachers with toolkits across faith and cultures, trying to combat discrimination, prejudice and Islamophobia. It is very successful. There are lots of other examples like that, which could be rolled out across a whole range of schools, but also other institutions.

That is really helpful. Dr Green, looking at the Muslim Council of Britain, what work do you do, or plan to do, with other groups from other communities to improve cohesion?

The MCB is an umbrella body and the council is democratically elected from our affiliates. We represent a cross-section of Muslim society across the UK, and our affiliates are doing lots of fantastic work at the grassroots level between communities. Certainly, as MCB, we have contact with other faith communities, interfaith networks and other community organisations that we have regular conversations with and meetings with at the policy level. We also encourage our grassroots members. There are lots of different things going on. There are soup kitchens, blood drives and street cleanups, and there are lots of collaborations, even if it is just a coffee morning. We have Visit My Mosque; this is the 10th year of Visit My Mosque, where we encourage mosques across the country to open their doors, invite people in, and on some occasions go out to other communities, meet other faith communities and other community groups to increase their awareness of each other. One of the key issues with Islamophobia is the misinformation and disinformation, and the best way you can target that is by getting to know each other and breaking down some of those stereotypes.

This question is open to whoever has some experience, perhaps, of what has been going on in Wales. I am an MP from Wales, and there were no riots in Wales in the summer, which I am obviously really grateful for and pleased about. Do you think there was a different approach taken by the Welsh Government or by communities there, or is community cohesion stronger, or is there another reason for that? If you do not know, that is absolutely fine.

Can I come in there? I went on a fact-finding mission to Wales a year and a half ago. I learned all about the anti-racism curriculum, and I was with a group of people from different faith backgrounds. I was very impressed with the Welsh Government’s approach, which is actively anti-racist and actively learning about different cultures and different faith groups. We visited several schools. That proactive approach in Wales is something the devolved nations—England, Scotland and Northern Ireland—can really learn from. That was a key factor in the difference that we saw in the summer.

I had a question on this section around combating Islamophobia, which leads from the last section, do you think it is possible to combat Islamophobia without defining it?

The debate around whether we should define Islamophobia has been around for a number of years. In a nutshell, it is not possible. This debate has been going on. There have been different definitions, obviously, that have been put forward. The APPG on British Muslims put forward a definition in 2018. First, let me say that a definition is a first step in dealing with Islamophobia, and it is a needed step. We have seen how, while this sort of debate has been rumbling on, Islamophobia has been increasing. It is one tool in a toolbox needed to deal with Islamophobia, racism, and anti-Muslim hatred as experienced by British Muslims. It is an essential tool, but it is a first step. It is not a means to an end, but it will help significantly in the way that we have seen how a definition of antisemitism has helped deal with antisemitism.

In terms of promoting community cohesion and combating Islamophobia, Equi is going to soon be launching a report on this topic. I can give you a heads up on some messages that might be relevant to this discussion today. Again, these are very practical suggestions. We need public awareness campaigns. We need nationwide initiatives to challenge the misconceptions about Muslims because some polling that we have done shows that that works. We surveyed 2,000 people through YouGov, and 80% of people said that they would have a positive impression of British Muslims if they had more facts at their disposal and ways that they could access more information. They are not getting it at the moment. What they tend to see is the negativity. Interfaith and intercultural dialogue make a difference. Government should develop a cross-departmental strategy to engage faith and belief groups as delivery partners. That will help. They should fund a national training and capacity-building scheme for faith and belief groups, focusing on partnership working, safeguarding, community development and so on. They should develop a toolkit that gives clear guidance for local authorities, police forces and the NHS to effectively engage with faith partners. We also need policy reforms to strengthen legal frameworks to protect against discrimination—as I think one of my colleagues said earlier, it is too woolly. We need to improve Muslim representation, ensuring that their roles, whether in politics, media, or leadership positions are available, and their voices are heard. We need to strengthen hate crime laws to make it easier to prosecute hate crimes and ensure justice for the victims. Again, it is too hit and miss at the moment. We need to support community-led initiatives and grassroots organisations tackling Islamophobia, because there are lots of organisations out there that are doing a lot and could do a lot more if only they were supported.

I would like to draw the Committee’s attention to my register of interests as well. I am going to move on now. Dr Green, these are just some questions about the Muslim Council of Britain, because successive Governments have had various policies when it comes to engagement or non-engagement with MCB. I just wanted to understand a bit more behind that. There was a time many, many years ago where MCB was on an official list, and it was taken off that official list by a Labour Government because there were changes in personnel. What impact has this had? You said that you have an affiliation with different mosques from around the country. How big is your organisation? How widespread is it? What difference does this inconsistency around engagement with Government make?

MCB is a very diverse organisation. Muslims in the UK are incredibly diverse. There are 4 million of us, and we come from different ethnic backgrounds and different schools of thought. MCB is a cross-section of that. We have around 500 affiliates, and we have partnerships with others that may not actually be affiliates, but we work in collaboration with other Muslim communities. It really came up during covid. There was a lot of co-operation between us and BIMA, the British Islamic Medical Association. There was a lot of work at the grassroots level with Muslim communities, ensuring that they had the best information available and they were able to follow government guidance. There was a gap in that communication between us and Government. We have specific expertise, we have knowledge within the communities that we serve, and we have Vision 2050. We want to make sure that we are improving the Muslim community and inspiring and serving the community—not just the Muslim community, but the wider UK community. We have never really had a clear answer as to why we are still out in the cold. It is a shame that a segment of the Muslim population is singled out and is not engaged with. A lot of the conversation about MCB is without us. There is all this conversation about us, without us. A lot of our critics have no idea about who is in the MCB, who our leadership team is, the structure of MCB, or how we operate. But the door is open. People are very welcome to come and have that conversation at any time.

Independent reports have underlined the threat of anti-blasphemy activism to community cohesion. How can the Government, local authorities and relevant organisations work together to reduce anti-blasphemy activism within the UK? I will come to you if I may, Akeela.

First, I want to say that what you described as anti-blasphemy activism is by no means my expertise, but it is also by no means my experience of British Muslim communities. As Naomi said, there are 4 million Muslims in this country living all around the country, and they are very diverse and not homogeneous. I wanted to put that out there. What you might be alluding to is the incident that took place in Batley and the recommendations following those incidents in Batley. As someone who has been working in the space with British Muslims and with other organisations around cohesion, integration and interfaith, what happened at Batley is symptomatic of a wider issue of people receiving information online and becoming more polarised, and a significant lack of investment in community cohesion by successive Governments over the last 10, 15 years. What we are seeing is that people are not interacting, not understanding each other and not knowing each other. This then leaves them vulnerable to being sold a black and white version of Islam, or Muslims, or cohesion, or other minorities and they are then reaching into that. If you think specifically about Batley, some actors took that issue and then exploited it for their own agenda and ideology. They were also acting in places like Birmingham and other areas. A lot of misinformation was also being shared on WhatsApp and online from outside the UK. Rather than developing initiatives just thinking about anti-blasphemy, there needs to be a much broader approach to cohesion, looking at the vulnerabilities across the piece, whether that is around people’s understanding of faith, Muslims, or Islam, or people’s understanding of sex education and relationships, for example. Otherwise, you are just dealing with the symptoms, and then you are putting more resources into dealing with the symptoms and not actually dealing with the root causes of what is happening across society.

Thank you very much, everybody, for your contributions today. If there is anything that you feel we could have explored in greater depth, or that, as soon as you log off or walk out of here, you think, “I wish I’d said this,” please follow it up in writing with us. Thank you so much for your time and your expertise today, we really appreciate it. We will move on to panel two now. Witnesses: Andrew Copson, Dr Sukhwant Dhaliwal and Professor Ted Cantle.

Good afternoon and welcome to the Women and Equalities Committee. Today we have Dr Dhaliwal, trustee from the Southall Black Sisters; Andrew Copson, chief executive of Humanists UK; and Professor Cantle CBE, adviser at Belong Network and public policy and cohesion specialist. Welcome to you all. Professor Cantle, can you hear us?

Yes, I can hear you fine.

Excellent. Thank you so much. I will pass you on to David.

Thank you for coming in. Andrew, I am going to start with you, if I may. From your perspective, what does community cohesion mean?

Starting with the big one.

And why not?

You have had lots of definitions in evidence given to you but, from a humanist point of view, I would say the important thing about community cohesion is that it is not a static thing. It is not just everyone being in a good state of relations with each other. It is a dynamic, ongoing process of good relations and of encounter with others. It means a society that fosters a sense of belonging, freedom and fairness for everybody and builds trust every day between individuals from different backgrounds. As it is a dynamic process rather than just a state, it requires meaningful interactions and relationships every day, everywhere, and all the time.

Dr Dhaliwal, perhaps you can add your thoughts on that as well? Can you also tell us what the key barriers to community cohesion are, and how we can perhaps overcome them?

I have so much to say on both those things. Obviously, as a starting point, community cohesion is something that is desirable—it is preferable to hatred, segregation, division and discrimination—but we have had difficulty with that as a framework. Basically, we want to put to the Committee today that that is not an appropriate framework to address the issues that arose last summer. What we ought to be doing is really focusing on equalities, non-discrimination and a human rights framework, emphasising that human rights are indivisible and universal. I just want to put that out there. There are a couple of reasons why we have difficulties with the community cohesion framework. First, and there has been quite a lot of writing on this—I would start with Ted Cantle’s work, but there has been a lot of anti-racist writing on this and how what it has done is to sidestep and push us away from the key issues. People are saying that now: “Why this is an appropriate response to the riots that took place last summer when those were so clearly about rising anti-immigrant rhetoric—divisive and fuelling racism, hatred and racist violence, stoked by the far right? Why are we trying to squeeze this into a cohesion issue when what we should be doing is focusing on anti-racist strategies and thinking about much clearer national and local anti-racist strategies?” We should be doing our work on the Equality Act 2010 in local areas anyhow. We should be doing the work around the public sector equality duty. One of the issues has been about anti-racist critique, which you may or may not be familiar with. There is quite a lot of it, talking about how community cohesion is a kind of moralistic language, which pushes and expands those distinctions between deserving and undeserving migrants, between good and bad citizens. It is values-loaded; it is not about rights. It is largely focused on putting the onus on minority communities to make themselves more palatable, more likeable. It has definitely been part of a pushback against diversity in a broad sense. As an organisation, we ended up in this curious position where we actually were defending multiculturalism, whereas we had a historical critique of multiculturalism. Multiculturalism was being treated with such disdain and community cohesion was being pushed forward as part of an integration agenda, which, basically, looks much like old-school assimilationism. A lot of the structural issues that minority communities have had to deal with are around institutionalised racism, and we had this huge recognition of institutionalised racism through the Macpherson inquiry that seemed to be pushed aside. All the stuff that led to Asians defending their communities in the north of the country, the racist violence, the stuff being pushed through letterboxes, things being set on fire, that was all the far-right mobilisation. That was all pushed to the side, and it started to be all about integrating and finding out why Asians are living separate lives, the backstory to how they got there and how they are living in some of the worst housing. Government’s role in that was completely set aside. That is the first point. The second point—sorry, is there a timer on this?

If you could keep the second point brief, please, that would be great.

There is a second and third point. Secondly, we were directly affected by the community cohesion agenda. Darra Singh, one of the men who was on the Commission on Cohesion and Integration, was actually the leader of Ealing Council at the time. It made a concerted decision to withdraw SBS’s funding and push for generic service provision for all women affected by domestic violence. We took them to court. We pushed for a judicial review and we won that case. It is worth looking at Lord Moses’ judgment on why it is important to have specific and specialist services for women, specifically minoritised women, to address the disproportionate impact of domestic violence, but also to assist them to participate more in public life. Thirdly, the reality is that we have actually seen multi-faithism in practice. This is also relevant to the first panel discussion. It has not been a move to generic service provision; it was channelled through Tony Blair’s commitment to a faith agenda. There has been a huge expansion of space for faith-based organisations, and actually an attack on secular progressive organisations in the process.

Thank you very much. I am going to come to Professor Cantle now, but feel free to come back on any of those points. I was quite interested to see your report, the Cantle report, in 2001, which found that some communities in the UK led parallel lives. Could you tell us a little more about what that means?

Yes, I can, but first may I just respond to the last speaker? It is not at all my experience over the last 20 years that community cohesion has in any way ignored discrimination and equality. It is just the opposite. But cohesion tries to deal with it in a different way. Instead of simply controlling behaviour, the cohesion agenda attempts to change people’s attitudes, and that is the fundamental difference. That is why it was a completely new agenda from 2001. As you will be aware, my report made 66 recommendations, most of which were implemented. It took around five years to get them fully implemented. As a result, we saw a reduction in discrimination. We saw communities working together, sometimes for the first time. We saw a breakdown in some of the parallel life experiences that we had. We saw better relations in schools and at the interfaith level because the cohesion agenda really focused on how people lived and worked together. At no point did we ever ignore the discrimination agenda or the equality agenda. It was entirely embraced by cohesion. That is a bit of a misrepresentation of the agenda. What we need now, after the 2024 riots, is exactly the same. Of course we need to think about equality and discrimination, but at the same time we need to change people’s attitudes towards difference and ensure that people are better able to understand each other, relate to each other and work together. It is a new agenda, but it has already been shown to pay dividends.

We were talking about how we address community cohesion, but what do you think of the lack of funding to local council budgets? Has it affected community cohesion, including through provision of services and cohesion programmes themselves? Professor Cantle, perhaps I can come back to you on that one.

That is absolutely a fundamental question. It is why we are here today. It is why the response to the 2024 riots was so poor: because we had lost the capacity, not just at local government level but at local community organisation and faith organisation level. What has happened over the last 20 years is that we have had report after report following disturbances that have flagged up the need for more work to be done, often at a very low cost. Once the disturbances have passed and the focus has shifted away, then, I am afraid, the support and the activity also fall away. We are constantly trying to catch up with some level of capacity at local level. The classic example of this is the 2022 riots in Leicester. Leicester was a beacon for community cohesion. It had tension monitoring programmes in place and very good relationships between communities, but all that had lapsed. The resilience of the local communities was, I am afraid, very poor by the time of the 2022 riots. Consequently, nothing was in place to try to deal with the disturbances. Similarly, in last year’s riots, we saw at the community level that most of the cohesion programmes had long since lapsed. None of the tension monitoring programmes that were implemented at very low cost were in place, and there was just an inability to respond and to intervene before the riots took place. Everybody could see what was building up. We could see the pressure that communities were under, but there were no interventions before they took place, and the interventions that came afterwards suddenly had to be cobbled together. We need a consistent cohesion approach, which involves very little money, but does require constant monitoring and constant vigilance. As Andrew Copson said, societies are dynamic; cohesion is constantly changing. The threats that we have today are very different from the threats we had 20 years ago. Consequently, the cohesion programme has to be updated regularly, monitored and intervened with on a regular basis.

It is interesting to hear that it would not take much money; that is good to hear, in light of the fact there is not much going around. Talking about the declining levels of things, I am going to come to you, Andrew. What effect do declining levels of religion have on community cohesion, if any?

Yes, I can definitely answer that. First, I just want to agree with what Ted said earlier about equality and human rights not being separate from or antithetical to community cohesion. If I had expanded on my definition further, I would absolutely have said that the human rights and equality framework has to be the basis of the cohesion agenda and foundational to it. The effect of declining levels of religiosity is difficult; I am very aware that some people claim that declining levels of religiosity lead to declines in cohesion because the argument is that when people came together in religious communities, they formed more cohesive groups within society and society as a whole was more cohesive. There is no evidence for that, so I certainly do not think that a decline in religiosity has led to any decrease in cohesion. For a very long time the UK, and England in particular, has been a very secular society. Obviously, most people now have no religious beliefs and no religious identity. Most people do not practise a religion, and that is a pretty constant line that is unrelated to cohesion. As Ted pointed out, in some parts of the country, religious differences and the growth of religiosity are leading to a decrease in cohesion. The transnational connections that lead to some religious conflicts globally are being played out within the UK. Leicester would be a good example of Hindu nationalism and an Islamic identity possibly being in conflict with each other in the UK, so some religious elements might feed a lack of cohesion. Ultimately, the answer to this is to resource and develop those parts of society where people from different religious and non-religious backgrounds come together. The focus should be on shared activities and shared interests; that is where you build community resilience. For example, and this is a great statistic, the type of group that delivered most help during the pandemic in terms of food parcels and support was sports groups. There are areas, especially martial arts groups for younger people—Belong has done some great work on this—where people from all sorts of different religious and belief backgrounds come together in an institution. The increase in funding of other civic institutions where people come together, whether it is schools—we have not got on to religious schools, but obviously I think that religious schools should be phased out and we should have secular schools where people can all come together—libraries or other civic institutions that can be sponsored and supported and space made for them, when they have often recently been hollowed out and defunded by local authorities, are the areas where cohesion can happen and religion is irrelevant to all that.

That is interesting because that leads nicely on to my next question. Dr Dhaliwal, going back to religion playing a part, what are the different ways that religious affiliation and ethnicity in the UK can intersect? What impact can these ways have on community cohesion? I know you do not like the phrase, but where ethnicity and religion come together, how can that benefit?

A point in case is talking about Islamophobia. It makes much more sense to talk about anti-Muslim racism, because it is actually a form of racism. Pushing it over to Islamophobia is to draw quite a high wall around it and make it very much about religious sensibilities, much more than addressing the power axis, because we are talking about power relations here, which is race and racism. How does it overlap? I am sorry to be so contrary, but I was going to say something quite different, which is that we have seen a significant fracturing of racial solidarities within local areas because of the actions of fundamentalist organisations. The stuff that has happened in Leicester is very much about Hindu fundamentalist groups building up a base and using WhatsApp groups and so on to perpetrate anti-Muslim hatred and to circulate a lot of misinformation. That is what was going on there. What we have experienced on our doorstep in Southall is that the whole place has been reconstituted in terms of religious identities. There has been a massive fracturing of the concept of “Asian”, which has very much been pushed by fundamentalist groups. Sikh fundamentalist groups have been very central to that. After 9/11, they were very fast to say, “We are not Muslims, and we want to be identified as Sikh.” They wanted to be identified as Sikh in the census; they wanted to be seen as a specific ethnic group. They have actively fractured those racial solidarities. The reason why we organise as a black and minoritised women’s organisation is because there are so many similarities and continuities between what Asian women are experiencing. However, Sikh fundamentalists would say, “No, that is completely separate to and different from us.” What we actually see is that they are all experiencing honour-based abuse, forced marriage, and transnational abandonment. It is pretty equal across the board, and that is because of the cultural norms, but there is definitely an intermingling of cultural and religious pressures. Religion simply does not exist outside of a cultural, economic and social context. It is always changing, but these organisations want to fix religious identities and have actively encouraged religious identities. We see it, pretty much, in our local area, and the state has played a part in that. We need to look at the state’s practice around encouraging faith schools, encouraging a faith sector, and bringing faith groups to the table to discuss issues like domestic violence—where, actually, they have been much more involved in mediating women back into abusive relationships than supporting them to find alternatives. This is why, for us, secularism is very important as an approach to service provision.

My first question is for you, Andrew. What sort of engagement, if any, do you think takes place between faith groups and non-faith groups, and how is it typically organised?

There are two types, really. Sometimes, long-established interfaith initiatives will attempt to include non-religious voices, either by approaching perhaps local humanists or other non-religious groups—although, of course, they do not exist at the same scale as religious groups in the country—or by bringing non-religious voices in from other parts of the community. For example, a teacher who presents a non-religious view, or a councillor or something like that. That is good as far as it goes, but that sort of face-to-face dialogue usually only takes place at a very elite level. Of course, we know it is also very dominated by men and self-styled community leaders. I have always thought that the preferable way to engage was, in the phrase the old pre-2010 Government used to use, not just face to face, but side by side, and to actually sponsor joint activities where people can do things together: take on a local issue, start a campaign, or even do a garden together, or whatever it might be, if your appetite is not activist but more hobby-driven. That sort of encounter between religious and non-religious, where you do not make a fetish of the difference or religiosity at all, is much more productive. As I say, that sort of thing, whether it is community cafés or other projects, is the best way to bring religious and non-religious people together. If you draw on the local community, then the non-religious are over 50%, so you are inevitably going to trawl some people into your net. You do not need to make a big deal of the difference.

In the last panel, Dr Green mentioned the Visit My Mosque initiative that has been running in some areas of the country. Do you think something like that is productive as well?

Yes, I do. I have a lot of time for Naomi’s work. We have done lots of work with her and with the Northern Ireland Humanists. It is a great initiative, and schools should be teaching more in the round about religious and non-religious world views, with community outreach and going to each other’s buildings. I very much remember growing up in the 1980s in the industrial Midlands, visiting a mosque from my primary school and it just being a complete eye-opener. I was able to take on my nan, my dad’s mum, in a very precocious sort of eight-year-old way when she, unfortunately, said some unsavoury things. That sort of engagement is essential. Cynically, you could just regard it as very superficial, but I do not think it is. Opening doors, welcoming people in and bridging is important. It just cannot be the only thing that is done, otherwise you feel like you are being guests in different people’s homes. What we really need is a solidarity of being together as equals, and projects and other work are more likely to engender that sort of feeling.

Opportunities for that.

Opportunities for that, which have really been hollowed out. We still have a very thriving civil society in this country. There was a point 20 years ago when it was the most thriving in Europe. I do not know if that is still the case, but there are a lot of community groups, a lot of community infrastructure still left in England, even though it has been undermined by a lack of funding and other social factors that are not to do with Government. Those sorts of initiatives and that sort of community feeling are still the best way of addressing these questions.

Thank you. Professor Cantle, who do you think fulfils the role of community leaders in the UK?

Obviously, it varies depending upon which part of the country, even which area of a particular city. The problem is that community leaders can sometimes be part of the problem. They are often the gatekeepers of their community rather than the gateways to their community. Whenever I have been involved in that sort of work in particular areas, I have tried to make sure that we do not just talk to community leaders. We talk particularly to women’s organisations and to youth organisations. We try to make sure that we get as many diverse voices as we can. Some communities are well served by community leaders. Others, I am afraid, find that a way of keeping control of their communities. You have to tackle it on a case-by-case basis, but I guess I am always suspicious of going into any community and just finding that the engagement is through the community leader, often self-appointed community leader. That is something that, at the local level, we have to take very seriously and make sure that we really are reaching all sections of the community and engaging with all the different voices.

Dr Dhaliwal, are women equally represented as community leaders? What, if any, are the challenges related to women gaining and holding leadership roles in their communities? It is a big question.

Our experience is that there is a default position of going to the largest religious institution in the local area, because there is a kind of underlying majoritarianism that feeds this, and that has a reproductive effect. You see a religious institution that has bought a big building and has lots of people going through it. You assume that it is representative of the community in that area, but actually it is very much defined by a very bounded notion of that particular religion. I am talking about my experience in Southall now. Everything around community consultation starts to revolve around that particular organisation. For instance, when we have Vaisakhi processions through Southall, all the local politicians are there. Every consultation involves the main Sikh gurdwaras in Southall, and those are very exclusive gurdwaras, actually, because they rely on one specific interpretation of Sikhism. They push out all the other interpretations of that religion, for example, the Ravidas who are low caste. You see this caste structuring going on, or people who believe in living gurus, living saints, they are not represented and they are seen as apostates. They are seen as blasphemers; they are diminished, and this group that has a large building gets all the resources. They then get a faith school that reproduces the identity. It is very much a reproductive effect. Obviously, we are very concerned about that in terms of what that means. For instance, some time back, Shaista Gohir made some really astute observations about what was happening in Birmingham, talking about how local relations of power work within Asian communities, which is very pertinent to the conversation on sexual exploitation. You have a link-up between a specific elite of businesses, often with Labour party officials, but local politicians and religious institutions, and raced managerialism within the council. That ensures that particular issues are kept off the table. She made a really astute observation, which we have been raising for a while, about how local relations of power work. We need to talk about power. We need to address that and grapple with that at a local level.

It already does a better job than we generally realise, especially in comparison with other countries that do not have such a broad subject base. It is very unusual to have, as we have in schools in England—developed with difficulty over a long history, but anyway, we have it now—a subject that takes as its baseline the assumption that it will teach about different religions and beliefs, not just for the point of knowing about these aspects of human heritage, but for instrumental points: that you might know more about your fellow citizens, you might be a better citizen of the world yourself and be able to navigate those differences. We are already in a better position than lots of other jurisdictions in having that curriculum in service of a cohesion aim, but it needs to be made more diverse. At the moment, it can present many religions and other world views as monolithic. Of course, that plays to those most powerful within those religions, who therefore get to choose what their religion looks like. Because the curriculum is determined locally and not nationally, that is exacerbated by the local effect of gatekeepers and power hoarders that we have been hearing about in other contexts. I completely agree with everything that was just said about that. There needs to be a national curriculum. It needs to evolve into a subject about different religions and world views, including humanism, and contain more critical engagement with these ideas, and more of an emphasis not just on mutual understanding, but on thinking for yourself, because freedom and equality are also important in this. It should begin to be inspected again, as the whole school curriculum was until recently, on how well it promotes cohesion. The whole school curriculum should be inspected on that. I think it was one of the recommendations of Ted’s report, which was implemented and then abandoned a few years ago. The RE curriculum has a lot of powerful potential. It is already achieving some of that potential, but it could do a lot more if it was reformed along those lines. I did not mention PSHE, but of course, when the curriculum was put together in primary and secondary level by the then Government after the election in 2010, it was effectively deleted by the Government that followed. From my point of view, whatever your politics, that was a big mistake because at both primary and secondary level, the programmes that work for citizenship, PSHE and RE which had been put together were really world leading. They were effectively completely abandoned, and they have not really been replaced with anything. Citizenship and PSHE have to become more prominent in the primary curriculum, as well as everything I have just said about RE. Hopefully, the ongoing Curriculum and Assessment Review might be susceptible to your Committee’s recommendations on that, if you made any.

We are still really dealing with parallel lives, and that has been promoted and enabled by Government agendas. Faith schools absolutely lead to parallel lives and insular communities. As I said, they have reproductive effects, because you have to be a member of a particular gurdwara in order to get admission to that particular school, so therefore you attend that gurdwara more. You become part of that congregation, you are counted among its members, you get access to funding and so on. They are insular; they are problematic, particularly in terms of PSHE. I did a few interviews with Catholic schools, and they were very clear that, yes, they will follow the national curriculum, but they will also talk about their particular moral values. That means that they will make it clear that homosexuality is not acceptable within their particular version of that religion. They will still do that, and that is why we have higher levels of bullying and harassment within those schools. Also, with Sara Khan, we took on one particular school, the Al-Hijrah Trust, about the discrimination against girls within that school and the gender segregation there. The books that were available and the teachings were all about justifying abuse, marital rape and domestic abuse, using literal texts in order to justify that. It was very discriminatory and not particularly good on sex and relationships education. I just want to add on to that, that actually, as Andrew was saying, we should be moving towards a beliefs and values module that is determined by central Government. We have seen, in areas like Birmingham, for instance, these large conservative mobilisations—they were not all fundamentalists, but they were definitely supported by fundamentalist activists—against particular headteachers; really aggressive, violent mobilisations, trying to push Anderton Park Primary School away from having general conversations with primary school children about various family forms. That is something that is very important for me, as well—it is important to talk about diversity in family forms. That headteacher was accused of wanting to sexualise children, sexualise Muslim children particularly, and of allowing the rights of sexual minorities to trump religious rights. It is important to create as many spaces as possible to have discussions and the right to freedom from religion, and as an organisation we do that a lot. That is how we operate. You can see it in Sara Khan’s report. There is just not enough space for people, particularly Asian women, or minoritised women, within our local area to be able to talk about not believing, or having questions, or doubting. It is a very feminist principle, actually, to dissent and to doubt, and we need to somehow create space for that.

It is a huge risk. Only recently do we seem to be getting to grips with illegal schools. They need to be tackled. It remains to be seen whether they are tackled to the extent that they need to be. I just want, though, to refer back to mainstream schools as well because most people and most schools do not appear to understand that they are under a statutory duty to promote community cohesion. They are still under that duty; it is just not inspected upon. We need to bring that back into the inspection regime and then that could then be applied to illegal schools as part of the new schools Bill. Obviously, this is all about trying to deal with the situation where children are separated by the school system, not just in faith schools but in non-faith schools as well. We often see highly segregated environments, and we are trying to get those children to relate to each other through things like the schools Linking Network. If they were in the same school in the first instance, they would grow up alongside each other; they would begin to understand each other; they would form friendships with each other. That is all denied to them. But it is much worse than that because, if schools are segregated, then parental networks will be too. There is clear evidence of that. If parental networks are segregated, then the community organisations are segregated too. Schools are absolutely fundamental to shaping the networks within the school and community environment. If I had to single out one area for cohesion, it has to be schools—not just faith schools, but all schools, and not just in teaching, but in the way the schools’ admissions policies work and the way they develop their community cohesion agenda.

Yes, I do. My religious education was longer ago than yours, I can assure you of that, but at the moment, we just do not have sufficient religious education of any kind. Religious education teachers are in short supply. The work that is devoted to it is very patchy. In some schools it is good; in some it is virtually non-existent. Obviously, there is a tendency in faith schools to focus on religious instruction rather than on religious education. It needs to be balanced by worldviews, not just religious views. There is a huge amount of work to be done here. Andrew has referred to his childhood and going to visit a mosque. If we could extend proper religious education to all schools and, hopefully, to some parental networks as part of that, inviting them to visit other religious institutions and so on, then we would take a pretty big step forward. But at the moment it is underfunded, under-resourced in every sense, and it is just not regarded as being as important as it evidently is.

Can I say something about schools, just because it has come up? On the question about illegal schools, this is an incredibly important issue. There are 6,000 children in illegal schools in this country. The Bill that is going through Parliament will address some of that, but not all of it. It really needs addressing: safeguarding failures, educational neglect, children coming out without even the English language and so on. These are all really important things. In relation to state faith schools, however, some things that shock us in illegal schools would be legal if they were happening in state faith schools, and we have to remember that. Not only is the school gate effect that Ted talks about really important, of parental and family and community mixing that takes place in schools that are more mixed, but sometimes you just have to step outside the current situation. We are very unusual in this country in even having state schools that select on religious grounds. Most countries that have state religious schools in other European jurisdictions have them, but they are not allowed to choose their pupils and parents on religious grounds. You would not have that in any other public service, whether a library or a hospital. In hospitals, people wait in waiting rooms together—maybe they chat, but they are all in it together. In libraries, in other civic institutions, you have people from all different backgrounds. When you step outside the situation, because we are all used to it in our country, the idea that we have segregated state schools, 100% funded by the state, which have this segregatory effect that is reproductive, as Dr Dhaliwal said, it is vaguely shocking. It has an enormous impact on cohesion, but it has been a taboo for lots of previous investigations into cohesion. Ted and Dr Dhaliwal have given good reasons why it should not be taboo. It should be taken on.

Thank you, Alex. Just before we move on to the next section, I just want to come back to you, Professor, if I may? There are some examples that are obviously not too historical, where we have tried to see integration through education in Northern Ireland to help with community cohesion. Is there any lesson that we could learn from there, or perhaps anything we could learn to do better in terms of removing barriers from Northern Ireland, as an example?

I spent quite a lot of time in Northern Ireland and, regrettably, most of the schools are highly segregated along faith lines. There are very few mixed schools. A small number of mixed schools are in middle-class, neutral areas, so it is not a good example to draw upon, unfortunately. We really have to get our policy straight on faith schools, and that is a problem for politicians. We saw David Cameron support the 50% limit on a single faith in faith schools. We then saw Theresa May immediately reverse that policy. I do not know where we are now with the various political party policies on this particular crucial subject. In my view, the very least we should be insisting upon is a 50% limit on a single faith in any school. That is not to deny faith schools; it is to put a limit on a single faith. Obviously, there are others who go further and say we should get rid of faith schools altogether. I entirely understand that argument, because faith schools are not performing the role that they should be performing, and have a lower proportion of SEN pupils. They are very socially selective and that is why they have the better results. There is a lot of work to be done on faith schools, but the one policy that political parties need to get straight is: are we going to have a 50% limit on a single faith within any school, as advocated by David Cameron and many other people on both sides of the House? That is probably one of the most crucial questions that only politicians can answer.

Dr Dhaliwal, how do you think differences or perceived differences in cultural values and social attitudes between different communities impact that cohesion?

I would have to go back to what I tried to say right at the beginning that there has been a real stoking of anti-immigrant sentiment in this country all the way from the press through to politicians. We have felt really sad and disappointed to see that it is continuing with the current Government. You know the kind of pictures of being involved in raids. There are lots of words that have been used in order to demean migration and migrants. It is having real effects on the women we support because they feel absolutely terrified to be moving around even if they have the right to remain in this country, and they can feel that hatred and disgust. The stuff around beds in sheds and having little photoshoots in beds in sheds is demeaning; it is about associating migrants with a sense of disgust. Sorry, I have lost the thread of your question. I guess what I want to say is we need to address some things that Hope Not Hate has raised in its reports around the summer riots, which is that the foundation had been laid; it did not take much to bring that up. They were not all far-right activists there; there were hundreds of people involved. It was absolutely terrifying for anyone who knows they are going to be subjected to colour racism. It was a complete revisioning of colour racism, the level of racist violence that we used to see in the ’70s and ’80s. We need to address that head-on.

Is it getting worse? Is it fear that is being exploited rather than any truth to those perceptions?

There absolutely is a lot of fearmongering. It is a kind of politics of fear that breeds fear, fear among minorities that live in this country, even established minorities. We knew that there was going to be a ripple effect. The people who were pulled out of taxis, who were punched in the street, the African Caribbean woman who was punched in the street, all those images, those things are not to do with people knowing the migration status or the immigration status of that individual. It is basic, crude colour racism, and we can sense it. In our local area, we did quite a lot of work around the time of the Go Home van, and what we found was people had swallowed up a lot of the kind of myth-making, and this sense that someone can be illegal. The Migration Observatory has told us that a lot of the people who are coming on boats are making asylum applications. We know that 75% of the 94% of people who make those asylum applicants are successful. We need to have an element of compassion. We need a public campaign to push that compassion.

Andrew, do you want to add anything?

I agree with a lot of what has been said and I agree that the political messaging, although there has been a change of administration, does not seem to have changed that much. There is still a lot of monstering of migration. There is still a lot of hot rhetoric about both asylum seekers and general non-refugee migrants. If that continues, then it will continue to set the background conditions for more violence, racism, and hostility. It is a shame if people in responsible positions, especially of political leadership, take riots simply as the opportunity to make points about law and order, rather than as an opportunity to make points about how we can live well together and how our society can be enriched by diversity, but also can be given a unity as a result of that diversity. That is the sort of messaging that we really need because, if we go back to your question about whether or not there are some different cultural values and beliefs between people who migrate here and people whose families have been here longer, that is inarguable. Of course there are. You can see in opinion polls and surveys that there are very different views of all types on all sorts of social and moral questions, and people skew one way or another based on their culture and ethnicity. But cohesion cannot be about making everyone the same. The other witnesses and I believe that there should be a framework based on equality and human rights, but a shared framework for us to be a society together. Not trying to erase that difference, while at the same time having a robust framework of values that allows us to live in a liberal democratic society together, is really important.

Is it the Government rhetoric that you have both mentioned and the policies around immigration that are driving this negative impact around community cohesion? Or is it a combination or almost a balance of attitudes, or immigration in itself generally, as well as that Government rhetoric that is being pushed and anti-immigrant policies that are having that negative impact on community cohesion?

It is absolutely being stoked. Over time, in Southall, we have had this great level of solidarity within our communities to fight off the far right, for instance. You could definitely see that in terms of people who were mobilising to keep racist violence off their streets in the wake of the first round of the riots. You could see that coming together; you could see that level of solidarity. We need to remember that actually, globally, a lot of people subscribe to human rights. There may be different cultural practices, but there is a widespread belief and commitment to human rights values. In fact, lots of women from South Asia, for instance, contributed to the development of human rights. In this country, we have all contributed to the development and understanding of equality and non-discrimination, and equality law as well. Diversity is important. Everyday multiculturalism is important. Being able to access a range of activities, clothing, food, and appreciating that is one thing, but actually making some really firm commitments to valuing migration and recognising the value of migration is really vital right now.

I agree with all that, but I do not want to evade your question. Obviously, we work with people who are asylum seekers because of their non-religious beliefs, or people who are apostates from their religious community who often come under threats of violence. We support them in their claims. It would be wrong to deny that there were different problems in different religious communities that are different from problems that exist in other ethnic communities or society generally.

I didn’t quite get what you were saying there, the implication.

I think that is the point of the question in a way.

Sorry, I didn’t quite understand.

That’s okay.

But the answer to that is education, support, human rights, equality, and proper intervention. It is the protection of people in those circumstances. We do not protect people from religious violence enough in this country.

Absolutely.

We do not protect free thinkers, dissenters, apostates.

And we do not have enough secular spaces where they can feel safe.

Exactly. I think we would both circle back to that as the answer.

Yes.

We would say that we need secular spaces and to be better ambassadors for the values of rule of law, freedom, human rights, and democracy. I do not know how people are expected to buy into and believe in freedom, democracy and the rule of law if they are faced with racist rioters. It is incumbent on us all, therefore, to try to act in accordance with these values and to make principled interventions. But, again, there is an extent to which social cohesion must also be based on freedom of thought and freedom of belief. Some people have views that other people disagree with, and you have to live with them as long as they are not harming others. An unwillingness of Government, locally and nationally, to be principled, to be secular, to prioritise equality, human rights, and the rights of every person, undermines our claim that those values are ones that we prioritise, and so we need to fix that. Of course, I guess Ted will probably have views about this as well.

Professor Cantle, are there any other factors that are driving a lack of community cohesion, for example the cost of living crisis?

There are, but one of the key issues here is the role of social media. To my mind, it is far more influential than Government rhetoric. The extent of the impact of that is really just not fully appreciated. Race and migration have become entwined with a new political identity, and we have seen that in the populist movements across the western world. If you are on social media, it is just impossible to ignore that rhetoric. Then, if you look at it from any particular community’s perspective, suddenly migrants arrive in that community. There is no preparation; they have no idea where they have come from or where they are going. They are put into hotels or into rented accommodation near them without any involvement, commitment or understanding and, inevitably, there is going to be confusion, divisions and, in some cases, hatred and discrimination. We have also failed to take account of population growth. Migrants are getting the blame for the lack of housing and public services. It is true that migration has created population growth, but they are not to blame. The blame should be squarely put on the failure to upgrade housing and public services in line with that population. We have created a situation where public services have just failed to keep up with the level of population, with the level of need, and it is inevitable that there will be competition for resources within communities as a result. We have to look at this in the round. It is not just simply to do with Government rhetoric. We have to look at the way integration has failed at the local level, the way public services have not kept pace and, particularly, the role of social media and the much harsher narrative that really has developed a political identity of its own.

Thank you very much, Kirith, and thank you so much to everybody who has given their time and their expertise today; we are really grateful. As with the previous panel, if there is anything that you would like to follow up, please just write to us and we will include that in the evidence as well. That brings this session to a close.