What does Badenoch mean by ‘government machine’?published at 15:23 Greenwich Mean Time
Thomas Mackintosh
Reporting from the inquiry
Angela Patrick asks Kemi Badenoch to clarify what she meant earlier by the “government machine”, which she blamed for the slowness of the financial redress scheme for sub-postmasters.
Badenoch says: “It is all of the procedures, decisions, consultations, reviews, submissions all of those things which need to be done to evidence decisions.
“There is, in my view nobody who wanted to slow down compensation, there were quite rightly people who wanted to make sure there was value for money.
“But as more and more checks and balances, more and more accountability, more and more rules and regulations, these things do have an impact and tend to slow down processes when you just want to get money out the door.”
Patrick asks who is responsible for fixing the so-called “government machine” if it is perceived to be “broken”.
Badenoch says it must be acknowledged it is broken, saying this is not an opinion the new Labour government shares.
She says reforms “need looking at”, without specifying who or what would be responsible for doing so.
