Labour’s Race Equality Act like South Africa’s apartheid, says Kemi Badenoch

Kemi Badenoch also compared Labour's plans to the regimes in China and Myanmar - LUCY NORTH/PA

Kemi Badenoch has compared Labour’s plans for a Race Equality Act to apartheid in South Africa.

The Business Secretary claimed that Labour envisions an economy that “micro-manages your business to meet their political objectives” including “the divisive agenda of identity politics”.

Labour’s Race Equality Act would enshrine in law the full rights to equal pay for black, Asian and other ethnic minority people.

Mrs Badenoch claimed that the legislation would be “classifying your workforce by race”, adding: “Having this influence their salaries is morally repellent.”

Speaking at the British Chamber of Commerce Global Annual Conference, Mrs Badenoch said: “It’s what they did in apartheid South Africa and what they do now in China and Myanmar.”

“We should not be going anywhere near this stuff,” she added.

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Mrs Badenoch added: “Measuring people based on skin colour is the beginning of a very slippery slope. I don’t think we should be doing it.

“It is not just reporting – it is mandatory pay gap requirements. That means that if somebody has one skin colour and another has a different one and they are not paid the same, you could have a problem.

“We have gender pay gap reporting. We have done quite a bit to close the gap, but I don’t think it will ever be closed, because many of the reasons why we have that gap are to do with personal choices, choices women make in their own careers, which are not necessarily things businesses can fix.

“But that is easy, you have two sexes, men and women, so you can measure. Ethnicity is a broad spectrum, you cannot put many people into boxes like that. You cannot have pay gap reporting somewhere like Northumberland that is going to work somewhere like Bradford, it is not going to make sense.

“Making it mandatory and setting up enforcement bodies is I think very very problematic.”

Mrs Badenoch sought to portray the Tories as the party of business, and Labour as one that treats them as a “pesky” force that “need to be controlled” with new regulation.

“Despite Conservatives already doing a lot on employment rights, bringing in flexible working and shared parental leave, Labour are fishing in this empty barrel for more,” she said.

Within Labour’s “New Deal for Working People” are pledges to ban zero hours contracts and put an end to fire and rehire, as well as reforms to the minimum wage.

Mrs Badenoch listed a series of Tory proposals to cut down on “burdensome” reporting requirements, including increasing the number of employees that a firm can have to still be considered medium-sized.

She said that the change would “save businesses at least a million hours of admin per year”.

The Business Secretary said of Labour: “Their vision of the future economy is one that micromanages your business to meet their political objectives. That includes the divisive agenda of identity politics.

“And I’m never going to shut up about that, no matter how many Doctor Whos say so,” she added, in a reference to her recent row with David Tennant after he said she should “shut up” because of her views on women’s rights.

She added: “In their manifesto they say they will enshrine in law the full right to equal pay for ethnic minorities. But you know and I know we already have laws that do that.

“This is going to be much more political.

“A law that will be used to work out what people of different ethnicities should be paid. And they’ll be checking on you.”

The Labour Party believes that their legislation would make it easier for people from minority groups to bring a claim against this employer as they would no longer have to prove “direct discrimination”.

While everyone can sue on the basis of discrimination under current laws, women have a right to equal pay for work of “equal value” written into the Equality Act 2010.

Women are therefore entitled to make a claim if they suspect they are being paid less than a man for a job deemed to be of equal worth, even if it is technically a different role – for example, a cashier versus a warehouse worker.

Labour would expand this to include black, Asian and minority ethnic people, as well as disabled people.

It is already illegal to pay these groups less based on their protected characteristics, but they currently have to prove “direct discrimination” to sue, whereas Labour’s planned reforms would allow them to make an equal pay claim instead.

The Conservatives have regularly referred to Angela Rayner’s workers’ rights plans as “French-style union laws” during the general election campaign, and have claimed it would cost £41 billion per year.

The figure was based on a number of assumptions that have been rejected by Labour, including that the party would allow everyone who wants to work from home to do so.

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