Scrapping the Public Sector Equality Duty won’t create the change Badenoch wants

Kemi Badenoch used a keynote speech at the Institute for Government to make one of her clearest statements to date on how a Conservative government would reform public services, announcing that she would abolish the public sector equality duty. The duty requires public authorities to have “due regard” to how to prevent discrimination, promote equality of opportunity and foster good relationships across communities, based on certain ‘protected characteristics’, as set out in the Equality Act 2010.

Badenoch argued that the duty creates perverse incentives for those working on the frontline of services. She said that services have “spent so long worrying about institutional racism that they have become institutionally incompetent”. She pointed to incidents such as the murder of Henry Nowak, the murders carried out by Axel Rudakubana, and the Manchester bombing, suggesting these were examples of where the duty had led to tragedy. But getting rid of the duty won’t lead to the changes – or improvements – that Badenoch claims will follow.

Removing the duty would not deliver the cultural changes Badenoch is seeking

Badenoch said that she had tried, as equalities minister, to use guidance to restrict how the duty was interpreted and applied – but found that many public services ignored this continuing to pursue equality of outcomes and waiting for a different minister “who would indulge this ideology”. Her conclusion is that this makes it necessary to remove the duty entirely – both to solve the problems she claims it causes, and as a symbol of a new approach in public services.

But this seems like a misdiagnosis. The duty specifically doesn’t call for public services to pursue equality of outcomes or require ‘positive action’ to address historic inequalities. If services are going beyond their obligations under the duty, it’s hard to see how removing the duty would address that.

If Badenoch believes that concerns about equality of outcomes are detrimentally influencing public service planning and delivery, she needs a proposal for broader cultural change within public services. The existing public sector equality duty is no barrier to that and, unfortunately for Badenoch, removing it would not automatically deliver the cultural change she wants.

The duty is not the source of poor performance in public services

Badenoch is right that public services frequently deliver poor outcomes for citizens. One in 10 people waited more than 12 hours when attending A&E in 2025. The median wait for elective care is now more than double what it was in 2010. The average time it takes for police to charge an offence has tripled from two to six weeks in the last 10 years.

She is mistaken, however, on the causes of shortcomings in public services. Badenoch sees the duty as a burden for staff, and argued that scrapping it would free them up to improve their services.

She was not able to say how much time this would save. That is because there is no good source for that information. It is notable that in our research, involving many conversations with frontline and management staff working in services, no one has ever raised the duty as a burden or barrier to service delivery.

They do, however, raise many other problems ones which our research shows are impediments to effective public services. They include short-term policy making and funding cycles, a fragmented regulatory and inspection landscape and long-term underinvestment in capital, among many others.

There is also little reason to think scrapping the duty would save much money. Data is again slim, but one estimate in The Times ⁴ Odling G, Hamilton F and Britten N, Henry Nowak case puts police DEI spending in the spotlight, The Times, 7 June 2026, www.thetimes.com/uk/crime/article/police-anti-racism-henry-nowak-5jwb9lm3m  put equality and diversity spending in the police at “tens of millions of pounds”. Given total spending on the police of almost £21bn in 2025/26, even at the upper end of that range it represents a tiny proportion, less than half a percent of spending. Whatever the merits or otherwise of police diversity training, against the scale of problems in public services, removing the duty would do nothing to move the dial.

Watch our Q&A with Kemi Badenoch

Badenoch must acknowledge that scrapping the duty would reduce protections for the most vulnerable

Badenoch argued that the public sector should take a much more limited view of equality than is currently contained in the duty – as a ‘shield’ from discrimination, rather than a ‘sword’ trying to promote equality of opportunity or outcomes. She said that while it is important to protect individuals from discrimination, public servants should not be actively working to increase equality. Instead, they should use their ‘common sense’ to figure out how to meet people’s needs without discriminating – and that officials don’t need a duty to tell them to do that.

That is, of course, a legitimate political stance to take. But the risk of Badenoch’s approach is that it leaves behind those who are least able to challenge discrimination. The ‘shield’ offered by the other parts of the Equality Act puts the burden on those who think they have experienced discrimination to complain – or ultimately go to court – to defend their rights. Those who are most vulnerable to discrimination will often find this the hardest, from the older adult living alone trying to access social care to the single mother trying to get appropriate support for her disabled child.

Watch our Q&A with Kemi Badenoch

The Public Sector Equality Duty, by contrast, requires public authorities to be proactive. Scrapping the duty would reduce the incentive for public services to think through in advance how to meet the needs of those most vulnerable to discrimination. Appealing to common sense is a rhetorical means of sidestepping the question, rather than finding a workable substitute for the duty.

Kemi Badenoch is right to be working on how to improve public services, and to use time in opposition to take policy development seriously. However, if she does find herself implementing this change in government, she is likely to be disappointed by the results.