The election of Barack Obama has started a debate in The UK about whether a black candidate could be elected here. This debate has also raised the question of representation of ethnic minorities in the British parliament.
For what it’s worth, I did a bit of research to try to figure out if the number of ethnic minority MPs in the House of Commons is representative of the population as a whole.
Unsurprisingly I do not have my own statistics and so I searched the web and found ethnic Population statistics for the UK from 2001 on www.statistics.gov.uk here and an ethnic breakdown of the British Parliament from 2005 on parliament.uk here
My research showed that ethnic minorities are under represented. I have tabulated the results below.
|
Ethnic group |
Population |
% |
MPs |
% |
|
White |
54,153,898.00 |
92.11% |
631 |
97.68% |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Mixed |
677,117.00 |
1.15% |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Inidan |
1,053,411.00 |
1.79% |
|
|
|
Pakistani |
747,285.00 |
1.27% |
|
|
|
Bangladeshi |
283,062.00 |
0.48% |
|
|
|
Other Sian |
247,664.00 |
0.42% |
|
|
|
All Asian or Asian British |
2,331,423.00 |
3.97% |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Black Caribbean |
656,876.00 |
1.12% |
|
|
|
Black African |
485,277.00 |
0.83% |
|
|
|
Black other |
97,585.00 |
0.17% |
|
|
|
All Black or Black British |
1,148,738.00 |
1.95% |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Chinese |
247,403.00 |
0.42% |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Other Ethnic groups |
230,615.00 |
0.39% |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
All minority ethnic population |
4,635,296.00 |
7.88% |
15 |
2.32% |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
All population |
58,789,194.00 |
100% |
646 |
100% |
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