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UK Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch has compared Labour’s pledge to extend equal pay protections to ethnic minorities and disabled workers if it wins the general election to the policies of segregation in apartheid South Africa.
“I think that classifying the workforce by race and having it influence their wages is morally repugnant. It’s what they did in apartheid South Africa and what they’re doing now in China and Myanmar,” Badenoch told the British Chamber of Commerce’s annual global conference on Thursday.
“We shouldn’t go near those things,” he added.
The Labour Party has drawn up a package of jobs measures it would seek to enact within the first 100 days of forming a new government, if it comes to power next week.
The package, called “The Labor Party’s plan to make work pay”includes promises to restrict zero-hours contracts, strengthen protection against unfair dismissal and curb controversial “fire and rehire” practices.
The proposals also include forcing employers with more than 250 employees to publish “pay gaps based on ethnicity and disability,” the policy which Badenoch has been particularly critical of.
The Labor Party has said that making companies report on ethnic pay gaps would mirror existing reporting on gender pay gaps, and described the proposal as a “common sense way to begin the process of tackling these glaring inequalities”.
The Office for National Statistics defines ethnic pay gaps as “the percentage difference between the average gross hourly earnings of the reference group [white or white British employees] and comparative ethnic groups.”
In the UK in 2022, Black, African, Caribbean or Black British employees earned £13.53 average gross hourly pay, while white employees took home £14.35. according The statistics agency.
But Badenoch, who is expected to stand for election as Conservative leader if his 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.”
The Labour Party declined to comment on Badenoch’s remarks.
Asked about a recent opinion poll of business leaders which 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 came to power because reopening political arguments over Brexit would send a wrong message to foreign investors.
Reynolds said achieving “stability” was Labour’s overwhelming priority after the head of the UK’s largest business group called on politicians to stop “walking on eggshells” on the impact of Brexit.
While recognizing that the trade barriers created by Brexit It had been “very, very difficult”, Reynolds told the BCC conference that the lack of consensus on Brexit limited the party’s ambitions.
“Labour will not seek to rejoin the single market or customs union, or reopen the wounds of the past, because that would not give us the stability we know is essential,” he said, adding that the party would “take a grown-up approach to Brexit.” ”.
In their general election manifestos, British business groups including the BCC, the CBI and MakeUK, the manufacturers’ group, have called on the next government to take steps to reduce the costs of Brexit for their members.
Recommended measures include the conclusion of a youth mobility agreement between the UK and the EU so that young people can live and work in each other’s countries.
Labour It has already repeatedly ruled out such an agreement, saying it will not do anything that resembles a return to the free movement of people, a fundamental principle of the bloc that grants unlimited rights to work, study and travel.
Instead, the main opposition party has limited itself to a deal that will reduce bureaucracy for touring musicians, who have been severely beaten for Brexit.