Badenoch: I don’t mind if people ask where I am from

KEMI BADENOCH has said she does not mind if people ask where she is from, as she launched an attack on “unconscious bias” training.

The Business Secretary, who was raised in Nigeria, said it was a “conversation opener”.

Just over a year ago a royal aide had to resign for asking a black woman what part of Africa she was from. Lady Susan Hussey, the late queen’s lady in waiting for more than 60 years, quit after asking a domestic abuse campaigner where she “really came from”.

Speaking at the launch of an independent report criticising the overuse of diversity training in British business, Ms Badenoch also said she finds it “frustrating” to be described as part of a marginalised group. And she accused MPS of “wanting to be nice” by discussing animal welfare rather than difficult issues like trans.

The Business Secretary, who is also equalities minister, backed the report by an independent panel which found that much diversity work by firms was a waste of money. Writing in The Telegraph

yesterday, she said Britain’s diversity push has been “counterpro- ductive” as she warned that inclusion policies must not come at the expense of white men.

“I saw that a lot of the unconscious bias training – not as a minister – was actually just reinforcing different sets of stereotypes. You mustn’t talk to people who are ethnic minorities about their hair and mustn’t do this or do that, you shouldn’t ask people where they are from.

“And I actually like it when people ask me where I’m from. It’s a conversation

‘For some people it’s an intrusive question ... but I find it is a conversation opener’

opener. For some people it’s an intrusive question because they take it to mean ‘well you’re not from here’. So these are individual preferences.

“One of the things I find most frustrating is when people tell me that I’m from a marginalised group. I’m not. I grew up in a country where I was the ethnic majority, everybody looked like me. I grew up in a middle class family or didn’t become poor until I moved to the UK.”