Diana Johnson has slapped down queries on gender neutral toilets, flags, decolonisation of artworks and diversity advisers.
HuffPost UK revealed last week how former Conservative chairman Richard Holden called for the removal of gender neutral toilets his own government installed.
Johnson told him: “The current number and location of gender neutral toilets in the Home Office’s Marsham office was established under the previous government in October 2017, at a cost of £36,963.20, and has remained unchanged since that time.”
It has now emerged that Johnson has also batted away several questions from Nick Timothy, the Tory MP for West Suffolk, on a similar theme.
In a written question Last October, he asked the home secretary “whether she plans to decolonise the artwork and heritage assets in her department; and what guidance she issues to her department’s arm’s length bodies on decolonisation.”
Replying for the government, Johnson told him: “Our immediate priorities remain the protection of national security, the restoration of neighbourhood policing, tackling the smuggling gangs responsible for small boat crossings and clearing up the chaos left by the previous government.”
In December, Timothy asked if the Home Office “will take steps to remove diversity and inclusion advisers and champion positions”.
Johnson told him those posts “were established under the previous government” and the reasons for having them “remain relevant today”.
Earlier this month, Timothy wanted to know which flags the home secretary planned to fly outside the Home Office “other than the Union flag in the next 12 months and on which days each flag will be flown”.
Johnson replied: “Current Home Office ministers have not been consulted on this issue since coming to office, but prompted by [Timothy’s] question, we have advised that there should be no change from the arrangements in place under the previous government, whatever they may have been.”
A Labour source said: “The Tories keep serving them up, and Diana Johnson keeps smashing them away. But there’s a serious point here. The only people in Westminster who care about any of this culture war stuff are the Tories.
“They’re the ones constantly obsessing about flags, toilets and artworks, while ministers in this government could not care less.
“Speak to any minister right now, and all they’re focused on is how they’re going to deliver their mission targets, what they can do to support growth, and where the money’s coming from.
“The idea they’ve got the time or headspace to think about what flags should be flying outside their department is a joke, and it’s no wonder the Tories left things in such a mess if that’s how they were spending every day.”