Minister: “They should be ashamed"
February 2005

David Lammy MP

One of Britain's leading black politicians has condemned the decision by Lib Dem controlled Lambeth to scrap plans to boost voter registration among black and minority ethnic residents. Action is urgently required to increase the under-representation of black and minority ethnic residents on the electoral register, and a door-to-door canvass is the only effective way of achieving this.

Lambeth is London’s most ethnically diverse borough and has the has the third worst registration rate of 33 London Boroughs. Over 31,000 residents identified on the Census are not registered to vote in Lambeth, together with many others who were not included in the Census returns. Experience across London shows that non-registration hits BME communities disproportionately hard and deprives these communities of their full voice in elections.

Lambeth's Electoral Registration team proposed a formula by which ten wards were identified for additional door-to-door canvassing where there was the greatest coincidence of both low voter registration and high BME populations. The cost for carrying out this work, at around £60,000, was turned down by the Lib Dem and Conservative councillors on the grounds that it was "not value for money"

As a fig-leaf to cover this disgraceful decision, the Lib Dems and Tories are proposing a number of small-scale initiatives like printing book-marks reminding people to vote. Compared to a door-to-door canvass, these initiatives will have very limited effect.

David Lammy MP, Culture Minister and Labour MP for Tottenham, said:

"Lambeth's Liberal Democrats and Conservatives should be ashamed of themselves. Councils should be doing everything in their power to register as many people to vote as possible. Lambeth has one of the highest black populations in London.

The council needs to make extra effort to ensure that all of Lambeth's diverse communities are registered to vote."

For more background see our 'Voter registration whats going on' briefing (.pdf 17kb)

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