The Tory leader says the public sector duty to consider minorities encourages division – but legal experts say abolishing it will fuel discrimination

For more than two decades, an important part of Britain’s equality laws ensured public institutions had to think about the impact their decisions could have on different groups in society.

Introduced after the Stephen Lawrence inquiry, the public sector equality duty required public bodies – such as local councils, police forces and hospitals – to think proactively about equality law. Now this once uncontroversial public duty is a new battleground in Britain’s culture wars.

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Badenoch said, after the murder of Stephen Lawrence, it was right that people wanted to ensure this did not happen again.

It led to the Macpherson report, she said.

[It] wanted to put right what went wrong with policing in the 1990s.

However, in attempting to do so, it also enshrined a principle which I believe is wrong that a racist incident is racist if it is perceived as racist by the victim or any other person.

Equality law, properly designed, should protect us all in the same way. It should be a shield, not a sword.

It should protect people from discrimination. It should protect people from being treated differently because of their race, sex, religion, sexuality, disability or age.