This chapter examines the development of integration and social cohesion policies. While its main focus is on the period after 1990, the chapter looks at the legacy of past policy. The chapter discusses the drivers of recent policy, which include increased immigration as well as concerns about religious extremism since the 11 September 2001 (United States) and 7 July 2005 (London) bombings. The chapter goes on to examine why policy on integration and social cohesion has proved difficult for governments, with reasons including a lack of conceptual clarity about these conditions, difficulties with cross-departmental working and the constraining effect of hostile public attitudes on the space for politicians to promote positive policy interventions.

1900–50: contrasting approaches to different groups

Integration and social cohesion policy have a long history in the UK. One hundred years ago in 1914 and under another coalition government, over 250,000 Belgian refugees arrived in the UK in the wake of an advancing German army. They were billeted all over the UK, to cities as well as to rural areas, and initially an NGO – the War Refugees Committee – assisted these refugees. But by late 1914, the government took responsibility for them, with the Local Government Board being the lead department (Cahalan, 1982). Among its policies, it encouraged receiving communities to set up Belgian Refugee Committees to assist in the resettlement of the refugees. There were 2,500 committees of volunteers by 1916, and there has not been such broad public engagement with migrant reception since then. Policy was led by senior civil servants, and at ministerial level by Walter Long, whose political epitaph largely comprised the successful integration of the Belgians.

By contrast, there was little government involvement in the settlement of 4,000 unaccompanied Basque children who had been displaced by the Spanish Civil War, nor in the integration of refugees who fled Nazi-occupied Europe – with one major exception. The government played a major role in the integration of over 200,000 Polish nationals, many of them excombatants, who arrived during and after the Second World War (Sword, 1989). Initially, the Polish government-in-exile assumed the policy lead for their support. After the exile administration was de-recognised, a high-level Treasury committee took over, and in 1946 the Poles were dispersed around the UK to jobs in mining, manufacturing and the new service industries.