Kemi Badenoch clashes with Mishal Husain in fiery BBC Radio 4 Today interview
The women and equalities minister took part in a combative interview on BBC Radio 4's flagship show.
Kemi Badenoch clashes with BBC's Mishal Husain
Kemi Badenoch clashed with Mishal Husain in a tetchy BBC Radio 4 Today interview.
The minister for women and equalities appeared on the flagship show after the Tories vowed to change the Equality Act to define the protected characteristic of sex as "biological sex".
During the combative interview, the senior Tory was asked on what kind of paperwork people would need to show to use single-sex spaces under Conservative plans.
She told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "The paperwork that explains what your legal sex is is your birth certificate."
She was pressed on which version of a birth certificate this means, given that it can be amended after someone's gender change has been legally recognised.
Don't miss... Furious Badenoch slaps down calls for Farage to join the Tories [LATEST]
Ms Badenoch replied: "What you are describing is a hypothetical scenario, assuming that when people go into rape crisis centres they're bringing in birth certificates, they're bringing in gender recognition certificates.
"What is happening at the moment is that people come to the centres and they are visibly of a different sex. You don't always need your birth certificate when you're going to the toilet and so on and so forth.
"So the point I'm making is about the everyday scenarios people will be experiencing."
She continued: "This is not a paperwork issue. This is a practical issue."
Elsewhere, Ms Badenoch clashed with the BBC presenter when pressed about Liz Truss appearing on the Lotus Easters podcast set up by commentator Carl Benjamin who once joked about raping Labour's Jess Phillips.
Asked whether it was appropriate for a Tory candidate to appear on the platform, she said: "Carl Benjamin is not standing for election, Liz Truss is.
"It is for her constituents to decide whether she has done a good job or not.
"It is not for you, or me for that matter, to decide which shows she should be able to go on because the presenter may have said something inappropriate before.
"We've had lots of scenarios of BBC presenters saying things that are inappropriate.
"I don't know about the show. I don't know what he said. And I don't like making comments on things like that that I don't know. I think it is trivial, it is unserious."
