Labour accuses Badenoch of wanting to ‘turn clock back’ with plan to scrap public sector equality duty
Good morning. For the last week or so much of the media has been dominated by a debate triggered by the murder of Henry Nowak, and claims that video footage of the police handcuffing him as he was dying showed that the police cared more about an accusation of racism than they did about a stabbing. The judge who presided over the trial of Nowak’s killer did not accept this allegation at all – in fact, he defended the police officers involved – but the lack of any evidence to back up this theory has not stopped it being spouted widely, by rightwing politicians and by media organisations that support them.
This morning, Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative leader, is giving a speech in part responding to this debate. Reform UK and Restore Britain have been more forceful than the Tories in claiming (despite all the evidence suggesting the opposite) that the police in the UK are biased against white people. But the Tories have leant into this too, and in her interview on the Today programme this morning Badenoch presented her version of this claim. She said:
The public sector equality duty is having the worst impact, I believe, when it comes to the police.
The Henry Nowak murder has shocked the entire country.
If you look at the police response, their inability to take a stabbing, or an allegation of a stabbing, more seriously than an allegation of racism I think is rooted in the Equality Act and in that principle that if someone says something is racist, then it should be accepted as fact.
In her speech today Badenoch is calling for the public sector equality duty to be scrapped, as part of an overhaul of the Equality Act. Ben Quinn has a preview of the speech here.
We will be covering it in detail this morning.
A lot of the response to the Nowak murder has been wholly opportunist, but that charge does not apply to Badenoch because she has a long record of wanting to roll back equality legislation. As equalities minister in the last government, she was the person who presented the Sewell report to parliament, a highly controversial document downplaying the existence of structural or institutional racism. Experts rubbished the report’s findings, and even in the Conservative party not everyone agreed. But, for Badenoch, it reflected her core belief that identity politics has gone too far. This morning’s speech is an extension of ideas she has been developing for years.
Liz Kendall, the technology secretary, was on the interview round for the government this morning. She said getting rid of the public sector equality duty would “turn the clock back”. She told Sky News:
What [Badenoch is] saying is she wants to repeal a duty which stops pregnant women being sacked, women on maternity leave being sacked, which prevents discrimination against disabled people, which prevents discrimination on age grounds. You know, people thinking, ‘Oh, you’re too old for this job, despite all of your experience’.
That’s not common-sense middle ground. It’s turning the clock back to the past.
So, she needs to spell out which elements of that she’s going to withdraw, which I think are really, really important.
Because, look, our public services and our companies need to draw on all of the talents of the British people if they’re going to succeed, that is what the public sector equality duty is all about.
Here is the agenda for the day.
9.30am: Keir Starmer chairs cabinet.
10am: Kemi Badenoch gives a speech on Conservative plans to overhaul the Equality Act.
Morning: David Lammy, the justice secretary and deputy PM, is unveiling plans to use AI in courts.
11.30am: James Murray, the new health secretary, takes questions in the Commons.
Noon: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.
2.30pm: Mary-Ann Stephenson, chair of the Equality and Human Rights Committee, gives evidence to the Commons women and equalities committee.
3.15pm: Alex Norris, the minister for border security and asylum, gives evidence to the Commons home affairs committee about asylum accommodation.
3.30pm: John Healey, the defence secretary, gives a speech to the GMB conference.
If you want to contact me, please post a message below the line when comments are open (between 10am and 3pm), or message me on social media. I can’t read all the messages BTL, but if you put “Andrew” in a message aimed at me, I am more likely to see it because I search for posts containing that word.
If you want to flag something up urgently, it is best to use social media. You can reach me on Bluesky at @andrewsparrowgdn.bsky.social. The Guardian has given up posting from its official accounts on X, but individual Guardian journalists are there, I still have my account, and if you message me there at @AndrewSparrow, I will see it and respond if necessary.
I find it very helpful when readers point out mistakes, even minor typos. No error is too small to correct. And I find your questions very interesting too. I can’t promise to reply to them all, but I will try to reply to as many as I can, either BTL or sometimes in the blog.
Key events
Badenoch claims police who arrested Henry Nowak influenced by guidance saying hate crimes should be treated as priority
Kemi Badenoch starts by talking about the video filmed by the police as they arrested Henry Nowak.
She says it was hard to watch because she “found myself willing the police to stop, to at least consider Henry’s story and check if he had been stabbed”.
She says she met Nowak’s family last week. They do not want this case to be used to divide people.
She goes on:
They want the police to become an institution that we can trust again.
And if we want to honour that wish to honour Henry’s memory, we need to ask the right question.
I believe that question is why did the police take an accusation of racism more seriously than the claim that Henry had been stabbed?
This question goes beyond policing.
Why are public bodies so unable to act with common sense when race or identity is involved?
Why are they so distracted, busying themselves with things that have nothing to do with their core function?
Badenoch says the speech she is giving today is the basis of work she has been doing for months on equality law. Some of what she says will be “very uncomfortable” for some people.
She goes on:
In some ways I feel for those police officers because they were following guidance. They have been trained on guidance which does not apply equality under the law. Guidance which says hate crimes should be treated as a priority. Many people don’t know what is in this guidance and that is why it needs to be exposed.
Kemi Badenoch is about to give her speech.
She is at the Institute for Goverment, and was introduced by Hannah White, the IfG’s COE.
Unions rebuff Farage and say Reform ‘cosplaying’ as workers’ champions
Major trade unions and the TUC have rebuffed Nigel Farage’s call for unions to affiliate to Reform UK, saying the party is “cosplaying” as workers’ champions and has opposed new employment rights, Jessica Elgot reports.
There has been a brutal stabbing in Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland is a place with a long history of violence – even though the Troubles are long over, paramilitary-style assaults still happen quite regularly – but this attack was particularly vicious and it is getting a lot of attention this morning in part because pictures are circulating which appear to show the attacker was not white.
Rightwing politicians are saying the police should give details of his identity as soon as possible.
This is from Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader.
What happened in Belfast last night is horrific.
The authorities must reveal the identity and status of the attacker immediately.
The public are entitled to the truth.
Rupert Lowe, the Restore Britain leader, has issued this statement.
And Alex Burghart, the shadow Northern Ireland secretary, has issued this statement on behalf of the Conservative party.
Last night there was an appalling and brutal attack in North Belfast – which was met by extraordinary bravery by some local people.
The police have made an arrest and it is vital that they are able to do their job.
Residents should be told the facts of the case as soon as possible.
In response to the concern, Keir Starmer has issued this statement.
The horrific attack in Belfast last night is sickening.
I have absolutely no tolerance for abhorrent scenes of violence like this on our streets.
My thoughts are first and foremost with the victim, and I thank the first responders, including members of the public who intervened.
Why Badenoch says she wants to get rid of public sector equality duty
Here is an extract, released by CCHQ overnight, from the speech Kemi Badenoch is giving this morning. In it, she explains why she wants to get rid of the public sector equality duty.
There are so many problems [in equalities legislation] to fix. Many of them are currently as a result of the public sector equality duty in the Equality Act.
It is a duty that is subjective … with no clear rules … and whatever its intention … in practice, it has become a minefield that exposes almost every significant public decision to legal challenge.
A court recently found that prison officials had breached their duty because their separation of prisoners was disproportionately affecting Muslims convicted of Islamic terrorism.
These terrorists could now be eligible for compensation.
This is madness.
This duty is compromising security decisions … like isolating dangerous criminals … in case the terrorists call us racists.
Far from equal outcomes … this duty is leading to ludicrous outcomes …
Like the Norfolk constabulary telling a job applicant that because of her ‘gender critical’ views [biological sex is real!] … she would not be ‘suitable’.
The public sector equality duty has turned equality into a zero-sum game where some groups are preferred over others.
And the more public bodies chase equality of outcome … the further they move from equal treatment … and equality under the law.
That’s why I can announce today that a Conservative government will repeal the public sector equality duty in its entirety.
This is not a universal view. As Ben Quinn reports, Mary-Ann Stephenson, the newish chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, wrote her PhD thesis on the PSED and has argued that evidence largely suggests it has positive impact on equality practice in public authorities.
What is the public sector equality duty?
Here is a description of the public sector equality duty from guidance issued by the government to local authorities.
The duty is a statutory duty on listed public authorities and other bodies carrying out public functions. It ensures that those organisations consider how their functions will affect people with different protected characteristics. These functions include their policies, programmes, and services. The duty supports good decision-making by helping decision-makers understand how their activities affect different people. It also requires public bodies to monitor the actual impact of the things they do. For example, to keep under review how different groups of pupils are performing at school and to identify and take action if some pupils with protected characteristics need more support than others.
Reform UK defends its town hall Ukrainian flag bans in response to criticism from Zelenskyy
Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said the decision by some Reform UK councils to take down the Ukrainian flag was the kind of “small mistake that can break a big friendship”. The Ukrainian president made the comment in an interview with Pippa Crerar and Luke Harding.
In response, Reform UK has defended the flag policy being adopted by some Reform-led councils, saying not flying the Ukrainian flag does not mean the party is not supporting Kyiv in its fight against Russia.
Asked on Newsnight last night if she agreed with Zelenskyy, Laila Cunningham, Reform’s candidate for London mayor, replied:
No, I think we should only have British flags.
Asked why, she replied:
Because we’re a British country. We can’t have flags [for all conflicts]. We’re a British country and our public buildings should have the British flag.
It doesn’t mean that we don’t support Ukraine, in any way.
Labour accuses Badenoch of wanting to ‘turn clock back’ with plan to scrap public sector equality duty
Good morning. For the last week or so much of the media has been dominated by a debate triggered by the murder of Henry Nowak, and claims that video footage of the police handcuffing him as he was dying showed that the police cared more about an accusation of racism than they did about a stabbing. The judge who presided over the trial of Nowak’s killer did not accept this allegation at all – in fact, he defended the police officers involved – but the lack of any evidence to back up this theory has not stopped it being spouted widely, by rightwing politicians and by media organisations that support them.
This morning, Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative leader, is giving a speech in part responding to this debate. Reform UK and Restore Britain have been more forceful than the Tories in claiming (despite all the evidence suggesting the opposite) that the police in the UK are biased against white people. But the Tories have leant into this too, and in her interview on the Today programme this morning Badenoch presented her version of this claim. She said:
The public sector equality duty is having the worst impact, I believe, when it comes to the police.
The Henry Nowak murder has shocked the entire country.
If you look at the police response, their inability to take a stabbing, or an allegation of a stabbing, more seriously than an allegation of racism I think is rooted in the Equality Act and in that principle that if someone says something is racist, then it should be accepted as fact.
In her speech today Badenoch is calling for the public sector equality duty to be scrapped, as part of an overhaul of the Equality Act. Ben Quinn has a preview of the speech here.
We will be covering it in detail this morning.
A lot of the response to the Nowak murder has been wholly opportunist, but that charge does not apply to Badenoch because she has a long record of wanting to roll back equality legislation. As equalities minister in the last government, she was the person who presented the Sewell report to parliament, a highly controversial document downplaying the existence of structural or institutional racism. Experts rubbished the report’s findings, and even in the Conservative party not everyone agreed. But, for Badenoch, it reflected her core belief that identity politics has gone too far. This morning’s speech is an extension of ideas she has been developing for years.
Liz Kendall, the technology secretary, was on the interview round for the government this morning. She said getting rid of the public sector equality duty would “turn the clock back”. She told Sky News:
What [Badenoch is] saying is she wants to repeal a duty which stops pregnant women being sacked, women on maternity leave being sacked, which prevents discrimination against disabled people, which prevents discrimination on age grounds. You know, people thinking, ‘Oh, you’re too old for this job, despite all of your experience’.
That’s not common-sense middle ground. It’s turning the clock back to the past.
So, she needs to spell out which elements of that she’s going to withdraw, which I think are really, really important.
Because, look, our public services and our companies need to draw on all of the talents of the British people if they’re going to succeed, that is what the public sector equality duty is all about.
Here is the agenda for the day.
9.30am: Keir Starmer chairs cabinet.
10am: Kemi Badenoch gives a speech on Conservative plans to overhaul the Equality Act.
Morning: David Lammy, the justice secretary and deputy PM, is unveiling plans to use AI in courts.
11.30am: James Murray, the new health secretary, takes questions in the Commons.
Noon: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.
2.30pm: Mary-Ann Stephenson, chair of the Equality and Human Rights Committee, gives evidence to the Commons women and equalities committee.
3.15pm: Alex Norris, the minister for border security and asylum, gives evidence to the Commons home affairs committee about asylum accommodation.
3.30pm: John Healey, the defence secretary, gives a speech to the GMB conference.
If you want to contact me, please post a message below the line when comments are open (between 10am and 3pm), or message me on social media. I can’t read all the messages BTL, but if you put “Andrew” in a message aimed at me, I am more likely to see it because I search for posts containing that word.
If you want to flag something up urgently, it is best to use social media. You can reach me on Bluesky at @andrewsparrowgdn.bsky.social. The Guardian has given up posting from its official accounts on X, but individual Guardian journalists are there, I still have my account, and if you message me there at @AndrewSparrow, I will see it and respond if necessary.
I find it very helpful when readers point out mistakes, even minor typos. No error is too small to correct. And I find your questions very interesting too. I can’t promise to reply to them all, but I will try to reply to as many as I can, either BTL or sometimes in the blog.
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