Prime Minister

Kemi Badenoch Excerpts

Tuesday 28th January 2025 Written Corrections

The following extract is from Prime Minister’s questions on 22 January 2025.

[Mrs Badenoch]

The Prime Minister thinks that he can distract people from what is wrong with the Bill. This is not about breakfast clubs and school uniforms. Teachers and parents will be horrified at just how bad this Bill is. Even his own MPs may not realise it, but the Bill will cut teachers’ pay—it cuts pay for 20,000 teachers. His Education Secretary says that there is “not a ceiling” for pay—[Interruption.] Labour Members are all shaking their heads; they clearly have not read the Bill. The Education Secretary hasn’t read the Bill either, because clause 45 means that teachers’ pay will be capped. Did the Prime Minister know that the Bill as it stands will cut teachers’ pay?

[The Prime Minister]

We do need flexibility in our schools. If the Leader of the Opposition had hopped off social media for a while, she would have seen the amendment put down this morning to achieve that end.

[Official Report, 22 January 2025; Vol. 760, c. 999.]

Written correction submitted by the Prime Minister, the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer):