David Lammy

In 2002, he became Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State in the Department of Health.[18] In 2003, Lammy was appointed as a Minister in the Department for Constitutional Affairs[19] and while a member of the Government, he voted in favour of authorisation for Britain to invade Iraq in 2003.[20] After the 2005 general election Lammy was appointed Minister for Culture at the Department of Culture, Media and Sport.[19]

In June 2007, Lammy was appointed as a Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State in the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills. In October 2008, he was promoted to Minister of State and was appointed to the Privy Council. In June 2009 until June 2010 when Labour lost the election, he became Minister for Higher Education in the new Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.[19]

Lammy in 2017

After Labour lost the 2010 general election a Labour Party leadership contest was announced. During the contest Lammy nominated Diane Abbott, saying that he felt it was important to have a diverse field of candidates, but nonetheless declared his support for David Miliband. After the election of Ed Miliband, Lammy pledged his full support but turned down a post in the Shadow Cabinet, asserting a need to speak on a wide range of issues that would arise in his constituency due to the "large cuts in the public services".[21]

In 2010 there were suggestions that Lammy might stand for election as Mayor of London in 2012. Lammy pledged his support to Ken Livingstone's bid to become the Labour London mayoral candidate, declaring him "London's Mayor in waiting".[22] Lammy became Livingstone's selection campaign chair. In 2014, Lammy announced that he was considering entering the race to become Mayor of London in the 2016 election.[23]

Following the party's defeat in the 2015 general election, Lammy was one of 36 Labour MPs to nominate Jeremy Corbyn as a candidate in the Labour leadership election of 2015.[24]

On 4 September 2014, Lammy announced his intention to seek the Labour nomination for the 2016 mayoral election.[25] In the London Labour Party's selection process, he secured 9.4 per cent of first preference votes and was fourth overall, behind Sadiq Khan, Tessa Jowell, and Diane Abbott.[26]

In March 2016, he was fined £5,000 for instigating 35,629 automatic phone calls urging people to back his mayoral campaign without gaining permission to contact the party members concerned. Lammy apologised "unreservedly" for breach of the Privacy and Electronic Communication Regulations.[27] It was the first time a politician had been fined for authorising nuisance calls.[28]

Lammy has over the years publicly attributed blame for certain crimes to various specific causes and persons. He has also talked about black and ethnic minority peoples, especially those who are younger, their relation with crime and how they are treated by the criminal justice system.

On 11 August 2011, in an address to Parliament, Lammy attributed part of the cause for England's riots of a few days earlier to destructive 'cultures' that had emerged under the prevailing policies.[29] He also stated that legislation restricting the degree of violence which parents are allowed to use when disciplining their children was partly to blame for current youth culture, that had contributed to the riots.[30]

Lammy has blamed the Prime Minister and Home Secretary for failing to take responsibility over fatal stabbings in London;[31] he also blames inequality, high youth unemployment among black males, and local authorities cutting youth services and outreach programmes.[32]

Lammy has stated that the criminal justice system deals with "disproportionate numbers" of young people from black and ethnic minority communities: despite saying that although decisions to charge were "broadly proportionate", he has asserted that black and ethnic minority people still face and perceive bias.[33] Lammy said that young black people are nine times more likely to be incarcerated than "comparable" white people, and proposed a number of measures including a system of "deferred prosecution" for young first time offenders to reduce incarcerations.[34] Lammy has claimed that black and ethnic minority people offend "at the same rates" as comparable white people "when taking age and socioeconomic status into account"; they were more likely to be stopped and searched, if charged more likely to be convicted, more likely to be sent to prison and less likely to get support in prison.[35]

Lammy has commented on Britain's history of slavery.[36][37][38]

He has criticised the University of Oxford for admitting relatively few black students and students from disadvantaged backgrounds.[39] He also believes the Windrush scandal concerns injustice to a generation who are British, have made their homes and worked in Britain and deserve to be treated better.[40]

On 5 February 2013, Lammy gave a speech in the House of Commons on why he would be voting in favour of the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill 2013, critically comparing the relegation of British same-sex couples to civil partnerships to the "separate but equal" legal doctrine which justified Jim Crow laws in the 20th-century United States.[41]

He has spoken out against alleged antisemitism within the Labour Party and attended an Enough is Enough rally protesting against it. Lammy stated that antisemitism has "come back because extremism has come back" and is damaging support for Labour among Britain's Jewish community.[42] He is a member of Labour Friends of Israel.[43]

Lammy recorded the Channel 4 documentary for Remembrance Sunday called The Unremembered: Britain's Forgotten War Heroes which was broadcast on 10 November 2019. In it he reveals how 100,000 or more Africans who died in their own continent serving Britain during WWI were denied the honour of an individual grave, despite the Commonwealth War Graves Commission's reputation for equality.[44]

Lammy described the Grenfell Tower fire as "corporate manslaughter" and called for arrests to be made;[45][46] his friend Khadija Saye died in the fire.[47][48] He also criticised the authorities for failing to say how many people had died.[49]

He has written about what he believes to be the shortcomings of the housing market.[50]

Lammy is a staunch advocate of British membership of the European Union. On 23 June 2018, Lammy appeared at the People's Vote march in London to mark the second anniversary of the referendum to leave the European Union. The People's Vote is a campaign group calling for a public vote on the final Brexit deal between the UK and the European Union.[51] On 30th December 2020 he voted for the Brexit deal negotiated by Boris Johnson’s Government.

He supports shared parental leave which he maintains would "normalise" fathers being an equal caregiver with the mother, and would mean they become more involved in the raising of children, arguing that the barriers to "fathers playing a deeper role in family life" are not just legislative, but also cultural. He points out Scandinavian countries such as Sweden as examples of where governments have successfully made this happen, which he states has also helped increase gender equality.[5][52]