Kemi Badenoch claims up to 10% of civil servants are 'very bad'

Kemi Badenoch risked another storm of controversy yesterday by branding thousands of civil servants 'very very bad' – joking that they should be jailed.

The Tory leadership contender said that between 5 and 10 per cent of government officials – of whom there are more than 500,000 – are so bad that they 'should be in prison'.

Speaking at the Conservative Party conference, she blamed Whitehall staff for leaking official secrets, undermining ministers as well as 'agitating' in league with trade unions.

Although she insisted that many others in the civil service are 'absolutely magnificent', her outspoken comments come just days after she sparked a backlash by appearing to suggest that maternity pay had 'gone too far' – though she later insisted she was talking about regulation on businesses.

Mrs Badenoch was asked at a Spectator fringe meeting yesterday if she thought there should be time limits on officials' careers and replied: 'So it is not all civil servants. I don't want people to get me wrong. 

'I think that civil servants are like everybody else. They come in to do a job, and I'd say about 10 per cent of them are absolutely magnificent.

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'And the trick to being a good minister is to find the good ones quickly, bring them close and try and get the bad ones out of your department as quickly as possible.'

She went on, to laughter from the audience: 'There's about five, ten per cent of them who are very, very bad, you know, should be in prison bad. Leaking official secrets, undermining their ministers, agitating.

'I had some of it in my department, usually union-led. Most of them actually want to do a good job, and the good ones are very frustrated by the bad ones.'

Sources insisted Mrs Badenoch was joking when she said civil servants should be in jail.

However, she is known to have clashed with Whitehall before, telling two years ago how she had to battle staff in her department to force through a ban on gender neutral toilets.

Mrs Badenoch, who was Business and Trade Secretary in the last Government, said that ministers too often ask 'Sir Humphrey' mandarins what to do then 'go along with' the advice they receive. 

She added: 'I didn't do that, and that's why I managed to achieve so much in my department on Brexit regulations, getting rid of 4,000, removing the supremacy of the ECJ [European Court of Justice].'

But one newspaper reported this year that some staff in the Department for Business and Trade felt pushed out by 'bullying and traumatising' behaviour by Mrs Badenoch. Her spokesman denied the allegations as 'completely false'.

Dave Penman, general secretary of the FDA trade union which represents senior civil servants, last night posted: 'I'm sure that, as a former Secretary of State, if Badenoch had actual evidence to back up any of these serious accusations against civil servants, then action would have been taken. Otherwise she herself would be culpable.'