Oral Answers to Questions

Kemi Badenoch Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd June 2026 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

We now come to the Leader of the Opposition.

[Mrs Kemi Badenoch (North West Essex) (Con)]

I echo the Prime Minister’s words on Lance Corporal James Freeman and about the Royal Navy helicopter crash in Devon. I also send my deepest condolences to the family and friends of Henry Nowak. The circumstances around Henry’s wrongful arrest and tragic murder must be a wake-up call to the entire country and our institutions that every life matters, and it is the responsibility of everyone in this House to bring people together, not divide them.

Mr Speaker, with your permission, I would like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to Sir Alan Haselhurst—Lord Haselhurst—who died on Monday. Sir Alan served Parliament for over 50 years, eight of them in the Lords and 40 years as my predecessor as MP for Saffron Walden, while from 1970 to 1974 he was the Member of Parliament for Middleton and Prestwich. He was respected on all sides of this House, and was elected multiple times as your predecessor as Deputy Speaker, before he concluded in the other place.

Apart from serving his constituents, Sir Alan’s greatest passion in Parliament and perhaps in life was cricket, as you said, Mr Speaker. He was chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on cricket, a role which he encouraged me to take up and which I graciously declined, telling him I knew absolutely nothing about cricket. However, I think colleagues should know that Sir Alan’s intense lobbying is the reason that Sky Sports can be found on the parliamentary TV network. There is so much to say, but just to let everyone know, he was a good and kind man and he will be very much missed. My thoughts are with his wife Angela, his children Mark, David and Emma, and his grandchildren.

May I ask the Prime Minister by how much the welfare bill has risen since he came to office?

[The Prime Minister]

May I first thank the Leader of the Opposition for her approach and tone in relation to the tragic Henry Nowak case?

On welfare, as she knows, we inherited from the Conservative party a broken system, which we are now improving: delivering a youth guarantee; rolling out 300,000 work experience placements; and commissioning Alan Milburn’s review into youth unemployment. They are the steps we are taking. As she will know, the number on welfare went up hugely on the Conservatives’ watch, as did the cost under the shadow Chancellor, the right hon. Member for Central Devon (Sir Mel Stride).

[Mrs Badenoch]

The Prime Minister does not seem to know the answer, so let me tell him: benefits alone have risen by £20 billion since he came to office. The Prime Minister has promised welfare reforms—we heard him say it just now—so why was there no welfare reform Bill in the King’s Speech?

[The Prime Minister]

Welfare reform is balancing universal credit so that it no longer pushes people away from work. That is what we are doing; the Opposition voted against it. Welfare reform is introducing a right to try, to incentivise people to take up opportunities. That is what we are doing; they voted against it. Welfare reform is providing record funding on apprenticeships. That is what we are doing; apprenticeship starts fell by 40% on their watch. The right hon. Lady talks about the welfare bill. It soared by £88 billion on their watch. Nearly 3 million people were written off. Face-to-face assessments collapsed because of the contracts they agreed. And who signed off those contracts? The shadow Chancellor.

[Mrs Badenoch]

We need to bring down the benefits bill. The Prime Minister complains about the shadow Chancellor. The bill went up because of the pandemic and even then Labour Members were asking us to spend more. It is not the shadow Chancellor who is the problem; it is the actual Chancellor. She is not even in her place. The reason there is no welfare Bill is the Prime Minister has given up, and he has given up because Labour Members have given up on him. On Sunday, the Welfare Secretary was asked 12 times on national radio if he would make cuts to the benefits bill and 12 times he could not answer. So I will ask the Prime Minister: is he going to cut the benefits bill?

[The Prime Minister]

All our welfare reform measures, and all our measures to get young people into work, are to reduce the cost and numbers of people who are unemployed. That is why we have introduced the youth guarantee so that young people can have help into work. If, after 18 months, they have not got a job, they can then be given a job for six months supported, which we know is the best way to ensure they succeed. That is the change we are making, but the Conservatives introduced the system that is broken. We are reforming it. Did they vote to reform it with us? No, they voted to keep the broken system.

[Mrs Badenoch]

The Prime Minister keeps saying he is bringing in welfare reforms. None of those things is going to cut the bill. Even his own Timms review explicitly says—this is their review; this is in the terms of reference—that this is not about generating proposals for further savings. The Prime Minister had a chance to cut benefits. Last year, I remember the Government were planning to cut benefits and on the Floor of the House they U-turned. What did he do when he had a chance? He caved. He caved to all the MPs behind him who do not want benefits brought down. That is why they are sitting silently behind him. Does the Prime Minister agree with his Welfare Secretary that that was the moment he lost his authority?

[The Prime Minister]

I am proud of what we are delivering on this side of the House. The fastest growing economy in the G7—they said it could not be done. Despite the war in the middle east, the OECD forecasts that UK growth is up and inflation is down. Net migration, which reached nearly a million under the Conservatives—the Leader of the Opposition was the cheerleader—is down by a staggering 82%. The asylum backlog is down by 46%. We are delivering the fastest reduction in waiting times in the history of the NHS. That is on top of free school meals, free breakfast clubs and free childcare—and, of course, we are lifting half a million children out of poverty. I am very proud of the work of this Labour Government.

[Mrs Badenoch]

He says he is proud of what they are delivering—I am glad to see that the Prime Minister still has his sense of humour, given we all know that he is losing his job soon. He has no authority, and we know why: his MPs will not let him do anything. The Welfare Secretary said in private what the Government will not dare say in public. He said:

“Every meeting I have is: ‘Who can we tax in order to pay benefits to others?’”

Last week, Tony Blair said:

“If the Conservative Party repeats its offer of working together on welfare, Labour should accept”.

Today I am repeating that offer to the Prime Minister. Is he ready yet?

[The Prime Minister]

They introduced a system that is broken, they put the bill through the roof, and now they want to give us advice on welfare—no thanks! The question should always be not what benefits people are entitled to, but what help we can give people to change their lives. That is what the Work and Pensions Secretary was arguing, and he is right about that. It is a Labour Government that are helping people into work. Leader of the Opposition asks what we have done: more rights for renters, stopping unfair rent hikes, and giving 11 million people greater security and a place to call home; and more rights for workers, including bereavement leave on day one—ask anyone who has lost someone, and they will say just how important it is to have bereavement leave. We have lifted half a million children out of poverty. We often say in this House that every child should go as far as their talent or ability will take them. That does not happen if they are growing up in poverty. The Conservatives have fought us at every turn. I am proud of what we are delivering. There is much more to do.

[Mrs Badenoch]

The truth is that unemployment has risen every single month since they came into office. Mr Speaker, you can listen to their cheers get weaker and thinner with every passing moment. The fact is, despite his huge majority, the Prime Minister does not have the votes to reform welfare. There is a solution—a Conservative solution—[Interruption.] Labour Members are all jeering now, but I do not know why they are supporting the Prime Minister; he is more than happy to release their text messages while all of his have disappeared. Disappearing messages from a disappearing PM. There is a Conservative solution: benefits bill down, taxes down, growth up. Everyone in this House knows that the Prime Minister is just a caretaker keeping the seat warm for the Mayor of Manchester. But it does not matter who is in charge; Labour MPs will keep asking who they can tax to pay more benefits—it is in their DNA. The truth is that the problem is not this passive Prime Minister; the problem is the Labour party.

[The Prime Minister]

Forgive me if I do not take too much notice of the Leader of the Opposition. For 14 years they broke our welfare system, lost control of our borders, presided over the biggest fall in living standards on record, and broke the economy, prisons and the NHS—I could go on and on. No wonder she and the Conservatives are totally irrelevant. This Labour Government are delivering change. The biggest upgrade in workers’ rights in a generation—delivered. The Renters’ Rights Act 2026—delivered. Record funding for our NHS—delivered. The fastest growing economy in the G7—delivered. Lifting half a million children out of poverty—delivered. We are going to fight even harder for working people and a stronger and fairer Britain.