The murder of Henry Nowak and the police response that followed have fuelled questions about equality policies – and now Kemi Badenoch is using the moment to tear up one of the central rules governing them. The Conservative leader has called for the repeal of the Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED), the requirement for schools, hospitals and other public bodies to proactively consider promoting equality in their decisions. In a speech she described as the first step in a programme to “restore common sense”, Badenoch warned that public bodies have “spent so long worrying about institutional racism that they have become institutionally incompetent”. The duty, she said, has led to some groups being “preferred over others”.
The PSED, which applies in England, Scotland and Wales, forces public bodies to have “due regard” to three aims: eliminating unlawful discrimination, advancing equal opportunities for people with protected characteristics, and fostering good relations between those groups. But a legal opinion accompanying Badenoch’s speech pointed out a tension between the last two objectives – artificially boosting the chances of some groups, it noted, tends not to be conducive to close social harmony. “We do not need to replace the duty,” Badenoch said. “We need to explain to people that they should do their jobs.”
“Badenoch wants to scrap the Public Sector Equality Duty, warning it has made public bodies institutionally incompetent.”
She argued that equality law “properly designed should protect us all in the same way”, adding: “It should be a shield, not a sword.” But the understanding that such laws should protect people from being treated differently, she said, is being “perverted”. Badenoch, who grew up on three different continents, declared: “Modern Britain is the least racist country on Earth.” She added: “It is because we are not racist, because we care so much about equality that we have overcorrected and actually brought in rules that are actually discriminatory.”
The speech was part of a careful political manoeuvre. With Labour having strengthened equality protections under Keir Starmer, and Reform UK vowing to scrap the entire Equality Act, Badenoch tried to find a middle ground – ditching the PSED while keeping the rest of the 2010 legislation. She cited her record of “fighting against identity politics on the Left” during the George Floyd era, and warned against mirroring those tactics: “The answer to Black Lives Matter is not a White Lives Matter born of the same racial grievance,” she said. “We will not defeat identity politics by building a mirror-image of it.”
The move drew immediate fire from Labour. Science Secretary Liz Kendall said the plans would “turn the clock back”, claiming the Tories wanted to “repeal a duty which stops pregnant women being sacked, women on maternity leave being sacked”. Shadow equalities minister Claire Coutinho fired back, insisting that protections against discrimination were a “totally separate” part of the Equality Act and would remain in place. For now, Badenoch has carved out a pocket of space between Left and Right – but the question of whether her synthesis of “everyone matters” can hold remains open.