Badenoch claims UK becoming ‘welfare state with economy attached’
Kemi Badenoch is delivering her speech on welfare now. There is a live feed at the top of the blog.
Badenoch started
We are becoming a welfare state with an economy attached – 28 million people in Britain are now working to pay the wages and benefits of 28 million others. The rider is as big as the horse.
This isn’t just about welfare. It’s about politics too. We have a Labour government beholden to their left wing.
MPs choose not to fix this problem, a Reform Party that cannot, this is a ticking time bomb, and with the exception of the Conservatives, the political class don’t see it or refuse to acknowledge it. In fact, a lot of them want to make it worse.
If we don’t solve this problem, our economy will collapse. A million young people are currently not in education, employment or training, and we are on course to spend one in every four pounds of income tax on sickness benefits alone.
What began as a safety net for the most vulnerable has moved into something completely different. The system is unsustainable, and this threatens all the good it was designed to do.
Key events
Q: Boris Johnson said recently the Tories should just ignore Reform UK. But you are attacking them all the time, and your poll ratings are down. Do you think you should take Johnson’s advice?
Badenoch said it was the media who should take Johnson’s advice. They were the ones constantly going on about Nigel Farage, she said.
Badenoch dismisses Jake Berry as ‘banana republic’ opportunist after his defection to Reform
Q: Does it worry you that ambitious politicians on the right think they have to join Reform UK to get on?
Badenoch said there are a lot of people who come into politics “just to play the game of politics”. They follow the polls, and defect, she said. She was different, she suggested. She said she was working on a proper plan for government.
UPDATE: Badenoch said:
This is something which I say again and again, that there are a lot of people who come into politics just to play the game of politics. And they will follow polls and defect wherever they can, like they do in banana republics, to wherever they think that they can win.
We have to do more than win. We have to be ready with a plan. This is what Labour got wrong. They had no plan. They were just focused on the election, and now they’re in government, and they’re completely at sea, they cannot deliver anything.
All of the people who are not interested in coming up with a proper policy plan and just want to jump ship are welcome to do so, because when the time comes, at the next general election, the public are going to be looking for a serious, credible alternative. We are the only serious, credible alternative.
Q: Do you accept that the benefits bill went up under the Tories? And what has Nigel Farage got to appeal to people like Jake Berry that you haven’t?
Badenoch says the welfare bill went up because of the pandemic.
That was a global problem, and I can tell you that if Labour or even Reform had been in charge during the pandemic, we would be in a much worse situation than than we are now.
She says David Jones actually defected to Reform UK in January. “What’s interesting is that they’re having to restate the story again,” she says.
And she says Farage tells people “whatever it is they want to hear”, she claims. She says she tells the truth.
Badenoch dismisses suggestion that defections to Reform UK reflect badly on her leadership
Q: You have lost a second former cabinet minister to Reform UK within a week. (Former Welsh secretary David Jones, and Jake Berry.) What does that say about your leadership?
Badenoch says she has set out her views here. If people want more welfare spending and higher taxes, they should join other parties, she says.
Badenoch says Tories remain committed to triple lock for pensions
Q: Do you agree with the OBR that the triple lock is unsustainable?
Badenoch says the immediate problem is with working age benefits. That is where welfare reform needs to start.
She says the triple lock is Conservative policy. “Right now” the party wants to focus on sickness and disability benefits, she says.
Badenoch has finished her speech, and is now taking questions.
She says the Tories are the only party serious about getting welfare spending down.
Badenoch claims UK becoming ‘welfare state with economy attached’
Kemi Badenoch is delivering her speech on welfare now. There is a live feed at the top of the blog.
Badenoch started
We are becoming a welfare state with an economy attached – 28 million people in Britain are now working to pay the wages and benefits of 28 million others. The rider is as big as the horse.
This isn’t just about welfare. It’s about politics too. We have a Labour government beholden to their left wing.
MPs choose not to fix this problem, a Reform Party that cannot, this is a ticking time bomb, and with the exception of the Conservatives, the political class don’t see it or refuse to acknowledge it. In fact, a lot of them want to make it worse.
If we don’t solve this problem, our economy will collapse. A million young people are currently not in education, employment or training, and we are on course to spend one in every four pounds of income tax on sickness benefits alone.
What began as a safety net for the most vulnerable has moved into something completely different. The system is unsustainable, and this threatens all the good it was designed to do.
Streeting says resident doctors have lost support of public with latest strike threat
In the Commons Wes Streeting, the health secretary, has just delivered a statement about the announcement from resident doctors (hospital medics, formerly known as junior doctors) that they will go on strike in England for five days.
Streeting argued that it was unprecedented for a union to go on strike after receiving as good a pay deal as that offered to resident doctors. Elaborating on what he said in his open letter to the BMA released yesterday, Streeting said that when resident doctors were on strike when the Tories were in power, refusing to even meet them, they had the support of the public. But now they don’t, he said. He urged them to take up his offer to meet them so the strike can be averted.
His statement was theoretically addressed to MPs, but in practice it was directed at the BMA, and at the public at large. He is trying to use public opinion as leverage against the union.
Badenoch claims Farage like ‘Corbyn with a pint’, saying Reform UK promising ‘unaffordable giveaways’ on welfare
Kemi Badenoch is also going to describe Nigel Farage as like “Jeremy Corbyn with a pint and a cigarette” in her speech, according to the overnight briefing. She will say:
Nigel Farage pretends to be a Thatcherite Conservative but really, he’s just Jeremy Corbyn with a pint and a cigarette. On welfare he shows his true colours – promising unaffordable giveaways with no plan to fix the system.
Badenoch is referring to Farage announcing last month that Reform UK would lift the two-child benefit cap.
Badenoch calls for foreign nationals and people with less serious medical conditions to lose right to sickness benefits
Kemi Badenoch is giving a speech on welfare later. According to the briefing sent out overnight, she will claim that the welfare system amounts to a “ticking time bomb” because of the rate at which spending is going up and she will propose significant cuts.
She will outline a three-point plan to “fix welfare”. According to CCHQ, this involves:
1) Limit benefits – ending handouts to foreign nationals and restricting sickness benefits to more serious conditions. Modelling by the Centre for Social Justice shows that tightening mental health-related claims like anxiety alone could save up to £9bn.
2) Face to face assessments – restoring face-to-face checks and requiring proper medical evidence to stop the system being gamed.
3) Get people back to work – through retraining and early intervention. Under the last Conservative government, unemployment halved and 800 jobs were created every single day. The Conservatives will get people back to work again.
Of these, point 1) is by far the most significant, because the government is already planning a £1bn-plus investment in getting people back to work, and Liz Kendall, the work and pensions secretary, has said she wants more face-to-face assessments for sickness benefits.
Badenoch is expected to say:
It is not fair to spend £1bn a month on benefits for foreign nationals and on handing out taxpayer-funded cars for conditions like constipation.
We should be backing the makers – rewarding the people getting up every morning, working hard to build our country.
Our welfare system should look after the most vulnerable in society – not those cheating the system.
Badenoch’s speech coincides with the publication of a new analysis by the Centre for Social Justice thinktank saying that people on sickness benefits can end up receiving more than people working full-time on the national living wage, and that the government could save up to £9bn a year by cutting benefits for people with mental health conditons. The CSJ was set up by Iain Duncan Smith, the former Tory leader, and Badenoch seems to agree with the broad thrust of what it is saying.
In its news release the thinktank says:
In 2026/27, an economically inactive claimant on Universal Credit (UC) with the average housing benefit and Personal Independence Payment (PIP) for ill health would receive an income of around £25,000 – rising to £27,500 for those awarded PIP’s highest rate.
For new claimants, this falls to £22,550 once the Welfare Bill’s £47 per week cut to UC Health is taken into account.
By comparison, a full-time worker on the National Living Wage (NLW) is expected to earn £22,500 after paying income tax and national insurance – leaving a £2,500 gap between work and welfare for existing claimants.
The Daily Mail has splashed on this argument. The Daily Telegraph has also put it on the front page.
Tom Pollard, head of social policy at the New Economics Foundation thinktank, has posted this comment on Bluesky.
It seems completely reasonable to me that someone who has been assessed by DWP as being unable to work due to disabilities/poor health & as facing significant health/disability related extra costs should be supported by the government to have an income around the level of a minimum wage salary 1/2
The ‘work disincentive’ argument implied here is completely disingenuous because people would keep PIP (& a decent chunk of their UC) if they moved into work The vast majority of people in this position would rather be working if their health allowed 2/2
Almost 1.7m children living in homes affected by two-child benefit cap, figures show
Campaigners have renewed calls to scrap the two-child benefit limit after the latest figures showed the number of children in affected households is approaching 1.7 million across Great Britain, PA Media reports. PA says:
There were 1,665,540 children living in households in England, Wales and Scotland affected by the two-child benefit limit in April, figures published by the Department for Work and Pensions showed.
This was a rise of 37,150 (2%) from April last year.
There were a total of 469,780 households on universal credit affected by the policy – an increase of 13,520 (3%) from the total number of households affected in April 2024.
More than half (59%) of households affected by the policy are in work, the data showed.
A total of 275,820 households affected are in work while 193,960 households are out of work, the department said.
The government is expected to publish a child poverty strategy in autumn, and a multitude of campaign groups have said it must contain a commitment to do away with the two-child benefit limit.
The limit restricts child tax credit and universal credit (UC) to the first two children in most households.
Organisations working in the sector argue that 109 children across the UK are pulled into poverty by the policy every day and that an estimated 350,000 children would be lifted out of poverty immediately if it was scrapped.
Joseph Howes, chair of the End Child Poverty Coalition, said the government’s “‘moral mission’ to end child poverty will fail if the two-child benefit cap remains, arguing that “no child poverty strategy will succeed in lifting kids out of poverty, if this policy remains”.
He added: “We have heard the government say that they are looking at all ‘the available levers’ to reduce child poverty. We all know that this is the lever that needs pulling first – backed up by the government’s own data released today. It’s time for the government to act.”
This chart, from today’s DWP report, shows how the number of households on tax credits or universal credit affected by the two-child benefit cap has risen since it was introduced.
And this table shows the number of households affected by the policy, the number of children living in those households, and the number of children directly affected (because they were not the first or second-born child). In practice, of course, all children living in these households are likely to be affected by a reduction in benefits paid to parents.
The government’s welfare bill passed its third reading in the Commons last night. Aletha Adu and Peter Walker have the story here.
Here is the list of MPs who voted against the bill at third reading, including 47 from Labour. Most, but not all, of them were backbenchers seen as leftwingers.
This is what Emmanuel Macron said about the agreement on defence cooperation. (See 9.29am.)
Our two armed forces together constitute what is really the bedrock of this European Nato pillar, to be able to be framework nations, to project ourselves on several theatres of operation, to defend European soil, at the site of our allies, is paramount.
I welcome the fact that this [summit] can seal first of all breakthroughs in terms of strategic capability and common efforts, but really take it to the next level in terms of capabilities on more sensitive issues such as nuclear deterrence.
On Ukraine, he says there is a shared resolve to support the country. There is a “Coalition of the Willing” meeting taking place this afternoon, with Keir Starmer and Macron participating.
President Zelenskyy is in Rome, where a Ukraine Recovery Conference is taking place, but a virtual “Coalition of the Willing” meeting is also taking place, for the countries led by the UK and France that are willing to support Ukraine militarily, and Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron will be contributing from a military HQ in north London.
Jakub Krupa is covering the Ukraine developments on his Europe live blog.
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This is what Emmanuel Macron said in his public remarks at the start of the summit about small boats.
We share the same resolve to fight against illegal criminal gangs with strong coordination with other EU states.
As we’ve said, ministers have worked on that. France is the final point before entering into the UK, but these men and women obviously, roots of poverty, who are exploited by these smugglers. We must work with entry point countries into Europe to stem these entry points. We have common resolve in fighting this traffic and protecting our people and the men and women from these smugglers, and engage all countries that have a co-responsibility on our side.
This is something the EU wishes to take forward and starts with a bilateral discussion that must be broadened. I think that’s the momentum underway through this summit, and in line with what was done through the Calais group.
Keir Starmer is attending the UK-France summit alongside Rachel Reeves, chancellor, Yvette Cooper, home secretary, John Healey, defence secretary, Nick Thomas-Symonds, Cabinet Office minister in charge of post-Brexit relations with the EU, and Ed Miliband, energy secretary.
Macron suggests EU needs to be involved in finding solutions to illegal migration
Emmanuel Macron is speaking now. After opening in English, he switches to French, for the benefit of the French media.
He says the UK and France are opening a new chapter in their relationship.
The two countries are working together on economic challenges, he says. That will involve having more integrated capital markets, he says.
They are working together on security issues, he says.
On small boats, he says poverty is a root cause. The migrants are exploited by smugglers, he says. He says there is a need to tackle this with “common resolve”, and to restrict the entry points into Europe.
We have common resolve in fighting this traffic and protecting our people and the men and women from these smugglers, and engage all countries that have a co-responsibility on our side.
Macron says the EU also wants to tackle illegal migration. He says this will start with a “bilateral discussion” (between the UK and France, he implies), but he says that must be “broadened” (implying that ultimately the EU must be involved in a solution).
UPDATE: See 10.45am for a fuller version of what Macron said.