Who is Kemi Badenoch? Business Secretary at centre of ‘lying’ row with ex-Post Office boss Henry Staunton

Kemi Badenoch has become embroiled in a fresh row over the Post Office after accusing outgoing chairman Henry Staunton of lying.

The Business Secretary sacked the 75-year-old from his role last month, with Staunton alleging Badenoch told him “someone’s got to take the rap for this” and claimed he was instructed by a senior civil servant to delay compensation payments. 

This has sparked an extraordinary war of words between herself and Staunton, in which she accused him of lying “for revenge” and told the House of Commons she had “dismissed him because there were serious concerns about his behaviour … this included serious matters such as bullying”. 

Staunton has since claimed there is a record of his conversation and his spokesperson said this is the “first time the existence of such [bullying] allegations have been mentioned”. So what are the claims in this row and who is Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch? Here is everything you need to know.

Who is Kemi Badenoch?

Badenoch, born Olukemi Olufunto Adegoke, is the current Business and Trade Secretary and an MP for Saffron Walden in north Essex. She was born in Wimbledon, south-west London, and spent part of her childhood living in Lagos, Nigeria, and also the USA. She returned to the UK at the age of 16, and completed a computer engineering degree and masters at the University of Sussex. 

She later studied a law degree part time and worked at the Royal Bank of Scotland, Coutts and the Spectator. Badenoch joined the Conservative Party in 2005 at the age of 25. Badenoch first stood for Parliament in 2010 in the safe Labour seat of Dulwich and West Norwood in 2010. She became a London Assembly member five years later, but wasn’t elected as an MP until 2017 in Saffron Walden.

In her maiden speech, she described Brexit as "the greatest ever vote of confidence in the project of the United Kingdom". Since then, Badenoch has held a number of front bench positions including International Trade Secretary and Minister for Women and Equalities.

Badenoch is seen as a fairly right-wing Tory who is not afraid to get involved with culture wars. She has become involved in a number of controversies during her time in government (see more below), including the latest one with Henry Staunton. Critics of the Business and Trade Secretary say there is little depth to her politics. One MP told the Telegraph: “Can you name me one thing she stands for apart from taking on the woke mob?”

Badenoch is a darling of the Conservative members and one of the favourites to replace Rishi Sunak as Tory leader. She unsuccessfully stood to become party leader when Liz Truss won and became PM.

What is the row with Henry Staunton?

The row with Henry Staunton started at the weekend, when the former Post Office boss told the Sunday Times that a civil servant had asked him to slow down compensation for the sub-postmasters. He said: “Early on, I was told by a fairly senior person to stall on spend on compensation and on the replacement of Horizon, and to limp, in quotation marks – I did a file note on it – limp into the election.” He also claimed that when Badenoch sacked him, she said: “Well, someone’s got to take the rap for this.”

This provoked a fairly astonishing response from the Business Secretary, who tweeted to say this was “an interview full of lies”. The Business Department then published a “fact check” which included a letter to Staunton outlining the government’s priorities. This stated that the first priority was “effective financial management … including effective management of legal costs” and the third was “ resolving historic litigation issues”.

Then in the House of Commons on Monday (19 February) Badenoch continued her attack. She said that Staunton had been dismissed “because there were serious concerns about his behaviour as chair”. She added: “While he was in post a formal investigation was launched into allegations made regarding Mr Staunton’s conduct. This included serious matters such as bullying.”

Responding to these claims, a spokesperson for Staunton said this was the first time he had been made aware of allegations against him, adding that they were “certainly not raised by the secretary of state at any stage and certainly not during the conversation which led to Mr Staunton’s dismissal”.

With regards to the comments to slow down the compensation, the spokesperson said that Staunton “recorded [it] at the time in a file note, which he emailed to himself and to colleagues and which is therefore traceable on the Post Office server”. The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said that he could not comment on HR issues but added: “If such a note exists, we obviously would encourage the Post Office to share it so it can be investigated and take any action as necessary.”

On Wednesday (21 February), the BBC reported that Staunton had found the note from a meeting with former Department for Business and Trade permanent secretary Sarah Munby, the most senior civil servant in DBT.

Staunton's memo from the meeting recorded that "now was not the time for dealing with long-term issues" and that the Post Office needed a plan to "hobble" to the general election. In response, a government source told the BBC that the Post Office's struggling finances were "a matter of public record" and did not include the government-funded compensation payments.

The source added: "Henry Staunton is either confused or deliberately mixing up the two issues." This scandal is showing no signs of abating with Staunton due to discuss the note at the Business and Trade Select Committee next week.

Other Kemi Badenoch controversies?

As you can see with the Staunton row, Badenoch is not afraid to speak her mind - and this has got her caught up in a number of other controversies. Badenoch gave a speech in which she said schools should not teach children about white privilege or critical race theory. This is an academic concept, originating in the US, which says society prioritises white people, due to years unconscious bias 

Badenoch said that "elements of political race theory as fact, or which promotes partisan political views such as defunding the police without offering a balanced treatment of opposing views, is breaking the law". At the time, she was the Equalities Minister. 

Badenoch abstained from the vote on same-sex marriage in Northern Ireland. She also opposed plans by the Financial Conduct Authority to allow trans employees to self-identify and gender-neutral toilets in public buildings. 

In 2018, Badenoch admitted that 10 years before she had hacked Harriet Harman’s website and “changed all the stuff in there to say nice things about Tories”. When admitting it, she said: "This was a foolish prank over a decade ago, for which I apologise."

She was criticised by the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) for publishing a series of tweets which described a reporter’s attempts to get her to comment on a story as “creepy and bizarre behaviour”. The journalist had to make their X (Twitter) account private due to abuse they received.

Who is Kemi Badenoch’s husband?

She is married to husband Hamish Badenoch, and together the pair have two daughters and a son. Hamish has worked for Deutsche Bank and was a Remain supporter during the referendum, while Badenoch favoured Brexit. She told the Evening Standard that during the 2016 campaign her husband leafletted her for Remain.

Hamish Badenoch was a Tory councillor in the London Borough of Merton from 2014 to 2018. He also stood as the Conservative candidate in Foyle, Northern Ireland, in 2015, however finished in last place.

Ralph Blackburn is NationalWorld’s politics editor based in Westminster, where he gets special access to Parliament, MPs and government briefings. If you liked this article you can follow Ralph on X (Twitter) here and sign up to his free weekly newsletter Politics Uncovered, which brings you the latest analysis and gossip from Westminster every Sunday morning.