Unions have reacted angrily after Kemi Badenoch said up to 10% of civil servants are "very, very bad" and "should be in prison".
Speaking at a fringe event at the Conservative party conference in Birmingham, the leadership hopeful said civil servants "are like everybody else, they come in to do a job" and "about 10% of them are absolutely magnificent".
But she continued: “There’s about 5-10% 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, but most of them actually want to do a good job. And the good ones are very frustrated by the bad ones.”
Dave Penman, general secretary of the FDA union, said the comments were “irresponsible” and a continuation of a “culture war” and that Badenoch should withdraw from her party’s leadership race if she is unable to produce evidence to back up her claim.
As of June, there were 513,000 civil servants – putting the number falling within Badenoch’s “5-10%” of bad apples as between 25,650 and 51,300.
Badenoch told the event, which was hosted by the Spectator: “About 10% of them are absolutely magnificent. 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."
The former business secretary added: "I had some of it in my department, usually union-led.
"But most of them actually want to do a good job, and the good ones are very frustrated by the bad ones."
Reacting to her comments on X, Penman said: “These are serious accusations from a former secretary of state, who is now standing to be leader of her party. If she has evidence to back up those claims she should publish it, otherwise withdraw.”
"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. So usual irresponsible culture war then. Rinse and repeat," he added.
In a statement, a spokesperson for PCS – the civil service’s biggest union – said: “Kemi Badenoch just can’t let it lie, can she? When she was in power she was accused of bullying civil servants. Now she’s out of power she’s continuing her personal feud against them, many of whom are our members.”
In July, Badenoch was forced to deny allegations that she had bullied civil servants after the Guardian reported that multiple officials had alleged that she had created an “intimidating” and “toxic” environment at the Department for Business and Trade.
Sources told the newspaper that at least three senior officials in Badenoch’s private office had experienced “bullying and traumatising” behaviour that compelled them to leave the department; while another said her behaviour often appeared to be “sustained and personal”.
Badenoch, who was business secretary for the year and a half leading up to the July election, said the allegations were “utterly false” and politically motivated.
“Let’s be clear: these allegations are smears from former staff who I sacked after they were accused of bullying behaviour, lying about other colleagues to cover up their own failures and general gross incompetence. Intolerable behaviour I would not stand for,” she said.
Badenoch said at the time that the allegations were sparked by her entering the leadership race, which she said had “spooked the lefties”.
The PCS spokesperson added: "This is a below-the-belt attack on hard-working civil servants who can’t answer back. We won’t stand for our members being used as vote fodder for the Tory party leadership.
"Maybe Badenoch should reflect on her words, the way she treats civil servants and why the Tories lost the general election.
Steve Thomas, deputy general secretary of the Prospect union, said: “For someone who claims to want to be prime minister, this is a disgraceful and ridiculous allegation to make.
“Hard-working public servants like those Prospect represent deserve much better than this. We will not tolerate ill-informed, unfounded and untrue attacks like these on our members.”