Kemi Badenoch, a candidate in the race for the next UK Conservative Party leader, has argued that the government should leave people’s lives alone by interfering less and reducing regulatory burdens. Speaking on Times Radio, Badenoch stated that she considered statutory maternity pay a function of tax, calling it “excessive”, although she did not state what the correct level should be. Currently, the pay starts at 90% of average weekly earnings for six weeks before falling to the lowest of either £184.03 or 90% of the mother’s average salary for 33 weeks.
Badenoch later qualified her comments by stating that she did believe in maternity pay. She said that the exact amount was a secondary issue but claimed that businesses closing because of the high burden of regulation in the country was a problem. This echoed what she had said regarding more personal responsibility and cited the fact that there was a time when mothers were not given maternity pay, arguing that this ought to be taken into account.
Fellow Conservative leadership candidates Robert Jenrick, Tom Tugendhat, and James Cleverly all rejected Badenoch’s claims. Jenrick stated that Conservative Party members should support parents and working mothers, adding that he believed that the country’s maternity pay was low in comparison to other countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Both Tugendhat and Cleverly stated that paternity and maternity care were important.
Campaigners, such as Joeli Brearley who founded pregnant then screwed, have come out in opposition to Badenoch’s claims, calling them “absolute nonsense”. Without statutory pay, women would be forced to return to work very soon after giving birth, and families would struggle, Brearley argued in her criticism of Badenoch’s comments
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