The prime minister's new-look cabinet is being seen as an attempt to make the government look more like the people it serves.

With the appointment of Paul Boateng as the first-ever black cabinet minister and the appointment of David Lammy to a junior government role, Tony Blair will be hoping to reaffirm the role ethnic minorities now play in British society.

Whilst blacks and Asians have served in government, with the first two ministers in the history of parliament introduced under Labour, Boateng is the first member of an ethnic minority to sit at the Cabinet table.

But the new cabinet minister is warning against seeing his appointment as a political correctness.

"First and foremost I am a Cabinet minister,'' he told Sky news on Wednesday. "I am the chief secretary responsible for delivering the government comprehensive spending review - that is my job, that is what it is about.

"My colour is part of me but I do not choose to be defined by my colour. I work for a world in which people are not judged by their colour but by the content of their character. I want to be judged by my work in this position."

Despite an attempt to give women and members of ethnic minorities key roles in government, Blair failed to appoint a black or Asian MP to the Cabinet during Labour's first term.

There were rumblings of discontent that Keith Vaz had failed to make the list after the landslide victory.

Vaz became Europe minister, but eventually resigned on the grounds of ill-health amid claims about his business affairs. The former minister claimed that racism played a part in his downfall.

In the Lords, Baroness Scotland of Asthal and Baroness Amos serve on the government benches.

As Blair becomes the first prime minister to promote a black MP into his cabinet, the Commission for Racial Equality chairman, Gurbux Singh, welcomed the move.

"He has done very well for himself. It is very important to increase ethnic minority representation at all levels of British politics," he said.

"It will be particularly useful to have someone like Paul Boateng actually sitting at the cabinet table because of his experience of dealing with race issues at the Home Office.

"He will be able to represent the ethnic minority community and hopefully tackle its under-representation at the senior levels of political life."

Operation Black Vote (OBV) also welcomed Paul Boateng's appointment to the cabinet.

Lee Jasper, chairman of OBV, said: "For the first time in black and parliamentary history our communities will have a figure to aspire to in government. This gives hope that black youth too can be MPs, ministers or indeed the prime minister.

"However, there must be root and branch change if parliament and political parties are to sustain progress and reflect the UK's racial diversity.

"A positive programme to recruit, retain and promote Black talent will go a long way towards reaching our goal of an equitable and modern democracy."