Kemi Badenoch to call for public sector equality rules to be scrapped after Henry Nowak murder
Kemi Badenoch will call for rules requiring police officers, nurses and teachers to take equality issues into account when carrying out their daily work to be scrapped.
The Conservative Party leader is expected to announce plans to scrap the Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED) in a major speech on Tuesday as part of a wider overhaul of the Equality Act.
The speech comes a week after a political row over whether the police response to the murder of Henry Nowak in Southampton last December was influenced by equality legislation.
The 18-year-old student was handcuffed by police officers who ignored her deathbed plea that she had been stabbed after British-born killer Vickrum Digwa claimed she was the victim of a racist attack.
PSED requires all public sector workers to consider how their work may impact on people with different protected characteristics such as age, gender, sexuality, religion and race.
Ms Badenoch will warn that the mandate has “become a minefield that exposes almost every major public decision to legal challenge”.
It will say: “The court recently found that prison authorities had breached their duty because their segregation of prisoners disproportionately affected Muslims convicted of Islamic terrorism.
“These terrorists may now be entitled to compensation. This is insane.”
Ahead of Ms Badenoch’s speech, Conservatives claimed the mandate had helped fuel a culture of dividing people into rival identity groups and created a bureaucracy that spent public money on “box ticking”.
He also pointed to the Bank of England’s consultation to replace images of public figures such as Sir Winston Churchill with wildlife on banknotes as an example of the same Government culture.
The party said its approach would enable public servants to focus on their primary duties rather than equality law.
Shadow equalities secretary Claire Coutinho said: “The Conservatives believe in judging people by the content of their character, not the color of their skin.
“We need to remove identity politics from public life and bring back common sense, justice and equality before the law.
“Our public services must focus on doing their job and keeping our communities safe, without succumbing to radical ideologies and highlighting diversity and inclusion training which does more harm than good.
“We will change the Equality Act to stop public services such as the police and NHS wasting valuable time and resources on controversial ideas about race, sex and gender, and more time on the priorities of the British people.”
According to the Conservative Party, Ms Badenoch is trying to navigate a path between the different approaches of Labor and Reform UK.
The party also cited new equality duties in the Labor Employment Rights Bill, as well as Reform’s plans to repeal the Equality Act altogether, as Ms Badenoch supports her plans.
Ameer Kotecha, chief executive of the Center for Government Reform, said: “It’s right to scrap the Public Sector Equality Duty altogether. I’ve seen first-hand how this distorts Whitehall, for example by turning recruitment and promotion into a box-ticking exercise while the real work is being taken back.”
“Everyone should be treated fairly, we don’t need artificial targets and identity politics.
“The repeal has long since expired, but the culture it created will not disappear with the law. The real test is whether politicians have the will to rebuild a public sector focused on results and service, not performance values.”
