Kemi Badenoch compares Labour equal pay plans to apartheid South Africa policies

UK business secretary Kemi Badenoch has compared the Labour party’s pledge to extend equal pay protections to ethnic minority and disabled workers if it wins the general election with segregation policies in apartheid South Africa.

“I think classifying your workforce by race and having this influence their salaries is morally repellent. It’s what they did in apartheid South Africa and what they do now in China and Myanmar,” Badenoch told the British Chambers of Commerce’s global annual conference on Thursday.

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

Labour has drawn up a package of employment measures that it would seek to enact within the first 100 days of forming a new government, if it wins power next week.

The package, called “Labour’s Plan to Make Work Pay”, includes pledges to restrict zero-hours contracts, strengthen protection against unfair dismissal and curb contentious “fire and rehire” practices.

The proposals also include compelling employers with more than 250 staff to publish “ethnicity and disability pay gaps”, the policy singled out for criticism by Badenoch.

Labour has said making companies report ethnicity pay gaps would mirror existing gender pay gap reporting, describing the proposal as a “common sense way to begin the process of tackling these glaring inequalities”.

The Office for National Statistics defines ethnicity pay gaps as “the percentage difference between the median gross hourly earnings of the reference group [white or white British employees] and the comparative ethnic groups”.

In the UK in 2022, Black, African, Caribbean or Black British employees earned £13.53 in median gross hourly pay, while white employees took home £14.35, according to the statistics agency.

But Badenoch, who is expected to run for the Conservative leadership if her party loses the election, said: “Labour’s proposals divide the country into black/white, rich/poor, old/young — because they see people as target groups, not as individuals.”

Labour declined to comment on Badenoch’s remarks.

Asked about a recent opinion poll of business leaders that found 46 per cent thought Labour would be better for UK plc compared with 32 per cent for the Conservatives, Badenoch said: “I think that 46 per cent figure is a triumph of hope over experience.”

Earlier on Thursday Jonathan Reynolds, Labour’s shadow business secretary, said the party would not take radical steps to improve the UK’s trade ties with the EU if it won power because reopening political arguments over Brexit will send the wrong message to overseas investors.

Reynolds said delivering “stability” was Labour’s overwhelming priority after the head of the UK’s largest business group called on politicians to stop “walking on eggshells” over the impact of Brexit.

While acknowledging that the trade barriers created by Brexit had been “really, really difficult”, Reynolds told the BCC conference that the lack of consensus over Brexit limited the party’s ambitions.

“Labour will not be seeking to rejoin the single market or the customs union, or to reopen the wounds of the past, because that would not give us the stability which we know is essential,” he said, adding that the party would “take a grown-up approach to Brexit”.

In general election manifestos UK business groups, such as the BCC, the CBI and MakeUK, the manufacturers’ group, have asked the next government to take steps to reduce the costs of Brexit for their members.

Recommended measures include striking a UK-EU youth mobility accord to enable young people to live and work in each other’s countries.

Labour has already repeatedly ruled out such a deal, saying it will not do anything that looks like a return to free movement of people — a core principle of the bloc that gives unlimited rights to work, study and travel.

Instead the main opposition party has limited itself to a deal that will reduce red tape for touring musicians, who have been badly hit by Brexit.