Kemi Badenoch MP: speeches

Speeches

• 9 Sept 2026 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  We are talking about paying £35 billion to give away British territory, and all of that is happening while the Prime Minister’s Government are cancelling £30 million of vital training for British soldiers. He may be new to the job, so let me tell him what may not be in his briefing paper. Last year, defence funding fell in real terms—that is on this Government. To govern is to choose, so why is he choosing to send £35 billion to Mauritius when they cut the money to train our troops?

• 9 Sept 2026 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  No, it is not. The truth is the Prime Minister does not know where he is going to find the money. He is talking about anything except defence, including council housing. He will not fund the military. I will tell you what he is funding though, Mr Speaker—Keir Starmer’s £35 billion surrender of the Chagos islands and its crucial military base. That is British sovereign territory. That is a weak decision, and it is no wonder that Argentina is now threatening the Falklands. We need to project strength. We need to show that British sovereign territory is non-negotiable. So why, just like Keir Starmer, is he planning to surrender the Chagos islands?

• 9 Sept 2026 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  After last week’s session, the country was thrown into confusion over whether the Prime Minister was or was not going to fund 3% for defence by 2030. After today he will have another five weeks off PMQs, but there are some serious threats to national security that cannot wait. His Chancellor resigned as Defence Secretary because the Labour Government would not increase defence spending to 3% by 2030. Does the Prime Minister think that he was right to quit?

• 9 Sept 2026 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  The Prime Minister seems to think that the last Government were a Conservative Government. The last Government were a Labour Government and they failed, which is why Keir Starmer resigned. He keeps talking about their record as if it was fantastic. If it was, then why is Keir Starmer not sitting there? Where Britain needs leadership, what we have at the moment is just vibes. He said he appointed the Chancellor because he cares about defence, but he will not fund it. Other countries are making claims over our sovereign territory. They smell weakness. He is pretending that he is the change candidate, but the fact is he is still failing to cut welfare, he is still paying to hand over a sovereign territory, and he is still not funding defence. On the issues that really matter, is he not just continuity Keir?

• 9 Sept 2026 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  The Prime Minister wants to talk about the past on defence spending, so let me refresh his memory and that of the House. I remember when he was the shadow Home Secretary, when the then Labour leader wanted us to leave NATO, disarm our nuclear deterrent and defund the Army, so I will not be taking any lectures from him. The Prime Minister says the target is 2035. That is a decade away. If he cannot get to 3% by 2030, why should we believe he will get to 3.5% by 2035? The spending review is next year. Last week, I set out how we would get to 3% by 2030. The threats are now. Argentina is threatening the Falklands—now. Russia is threatening us in the North sea—now. The Prime Minister did not answer my question. I asked him if the Chancellor was right to quit. The Chancellor was right to quit, which is why it is so wrong that he is not sticking to his principles. The Chancellor used to say that not hitting 3% by 2030 would put our troops at risk. He also said that Keir Starmer was “unable”, and the Treasury “unwilling”, to provide that funding. So is the Prime Minister unable, or is he just unwilling, to get that money by 2030?

• 9 Sept 2026 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  It is unbelievable that the Prime Minister would say that. He is clearly unwilling. We need to fund our defence, not spend all our money on welfare. I cannot believe that he would actually say that. He is clearly unwilling, but there are ways to do this—he is not unable. On Monday, Chris Rokos, Britain’s third biggest taxpayer, announced that he was leaving the country. That is £330 million of taxes walking out the door because of this Labour Government—every year, £330 million. His taxes could be going on defence. The Prime Minister is talking about spending more on welfare. The benefits bill is set to rise by £32 billion under him—that is not all of it; that is the rise. That money could be going on defence. The Prime Minister will not approve the Rosebank oilfield—£1.4 billion of tax revenue that could be going on defence. So, will the Prime Minister tell the country: where is he going to find the money to fund our defence?

• 2 Sept 2026 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  I asked what the Prime Minister cut. He says tax cuts. He has not said where the money is coming from. He talks about digital ID— [ Interruption. ] Yes, I know he said digital ID, but the Chief Secretary to the former Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Bristol North West (Darren Jones), said that there was no money allocated to digital ID. You cannot cut something that never existed in the first place. Lord O’Neill, a close friend of the Prime Minister, said yesterday’s statement in the Commons was “the last thing investors wanted to hear”. Lord O’Neill is a serious economist. He knows what he is talking about. Sure enough, yesterday the cost of Government borrowing rose to its highest in 18 years. How does the Prime Minister plan to tackle the Government’s rising debt costs?

• 2 Sept 2026 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  The whole House will have heard that the Prime Minister did not rule out tax rises. Instead, what he did was lots of point scoring. He says he wants a new politics; he says he wants honestly, so why is he pretending that a junior Minister wrote that Budget? The fact is that gilt yields now, the cost of borrowing now— [ Interruption. ] Labour Members are laughing; I do not know why they are laughing. The cost of borrowing now is far more than it ever was under Liz Truss. The reason why that Budget failed is that spending was announced before the money to pay for it, which is exactly what the Prime Minister is doing right now. He says it is the new politics; it is the same old Labour politics—tax and spend. He did not rule out tax rises, and what markets see is a Government that cannot control their spending, so the markets will charge us more to borrow. That means higher mortgage rates for families. It makes life more difficult for businesses, and that pushes up the cost of living for everyone. Higher borrowing costs are the biggest threat to family finances, so will he rule out any more borrowing that will make people poorer?

• 2 Sept 2026 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  The Prime Minister avoided the question. He did not say no to a single spending request. Personally, I think it is delightful that he wants to make everyone happy, but a Prime Minister needs to be a leader, not a people pleaser. He is talking about working together on welfare. I already made that offer, but it does mean cuts—he wants to bring the welfare bill down by spending more money. Yesterday, the Prime Minister told the House that his summer of promises would be paid for by “reprioritising within Government”, so what exactly has he cut?

• 2 Sept 2026 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  I do not know what any of that has to do with tackling the cost of increasing debt. Collaborating with Jim O’Neill is not how we are going to get debt costs down, and he said yesterday that the markets would be worried. The markets are clearly worried that we now have a spendthrift Prime Minister who wants to say yes to everyone but cannot tell us where the money is coming from. He needs to pay for all his new promises, and he has a choice: higher taxes, more borrowing or spending cuts. Yesterday he said, “Change begins with honesty”, so will he be honest and tell us: is he preparing to raise taxes again—yes or no?

• 2 Sept 2026 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  May I congratulate the Prime Minister on his stamina? Three hours! [ Laughter. ] Yesterday, he faced 125 questions from MPs across the House. Of course, Labour and the Lib Dems just wanted more Government spending—that is, taxpayers’ money—but can he name a single spending request to which he answered no?

• 2 Sept 2026 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  The right hon. Gentleman is the Prime Minister now and he needs to answer the questions, instead of spending time attacking someone who has more private sector experience than his entire Cabinet. I asked him whether he would rule out more borrowing. He did not do so. We spend more servicing our debt than we do on defence—almost double. There is war in Europe. Yesterday, Germany confirmed that Russia was behind the attack on Leipzig airport. Tensions are so high that the director of the CIA flew to Moscow. We need the plan to hit 3% of GDP on defence now, but the armed forces will not know what they will be getting until next July’s spending review. There is a simple answer to this: cut welfare spending and invest that money in our defence now. Mr Speaker, the honeymoon is over. Isn’t it time for the Prime Minister to ditch the vibes and get serious about defending our nation?

• 1 Sept 2026 · Direction of Government · Hansard source

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  Can I welcome the Prime Minister to his place at the Dispatch Box and take this, my first opportunity to congratulate him on becoming Prime Minister? He has been in office for 43 days, during which I have learned how he puts the milk in his tea and exactly what he thinks about pork scratchings, but I have not had the pleasure of asking him any questions. We are all grateful that he has finally found time to come to Parliament to answer some. It is only fair to be gentle with someone on their first day at work, so I am only going to ask the Prime Minister a few very simple but very serious questions. I hope that he can provide me with some simple and serious answers. I genuinely wish him well as he seeks to live up to the dignity and importance of the role. I was pleased to see him in Ukraine over the summer, continuing the Conservatives’ world-leading support for Ukraine’s fight against Russian aggression. That being said, I am also very relieved to see that he has not brought his guitar with him today. His predecessor stood at that Dispatch Box two years ago sounding very triumphant, having just won a landslide victory. What went wrong? Where is he now? Gone. That job is not as easy as it looks from the outside. Labour MPs have not explained why they got rid of him. [ Interruption. ] They are laughing, but they have not explained it. We on this side of the House understand that the country’s problems will not be solved by lofty promises alone. In the end, the Prime Minister will be judged on what he actually delivers. This is a very different job from being Mayor of Greater Manchester—a job where he did not have to pick winners and losers, make difficult trade-offs, or have to worry about our national security. He does now. A Government’s first and most important duty is keeping the country safe. The last Prime Minister and his Chancellor left an enormous hole in Britain’s defence budget. We know that because the current Chancellor quit as Defence Secretary over that black hole, saying that it could put British troops at risk. He said that there could be an attack by Russia on NATO as soon as 2030, and that not funding the defence investment plan reduces the readiness of our forces. Let me ask the Prime Minister very clearly: will he provide the funding that his own Chancellor said was necessary to keep British troops safe? That means 3% by the end of this decade. Keeping this country safe also means defending our borders. The Prime Minister mentioned boat crossings, but we must be honest: boat crossings have not gone down because of anything that Labour has done. [ Interruption. ] They have not. We have to be honest. Boat crossings are down across all of Europe, and have been down for much longer. Let us be honest: the problem is still not solved. The Prime Minister will have seen the extraordinary scenes in Ceuta over the summer, in which more than 70,000 people tried to cross into Europe. Many of those people would like to end up in the UK. This is not just a British problem; it is a growing global problem. Even Denmark is starting to send illegal migrants to other countries as a deterrent. That is exactly like the Rwanda scheme that the Conservatives put in place and Labour scrapped. We now hear that the Home Secretary is thinking about reviving a Rwanda-style scheme, so can the Prime Minister tell me—yes or no—if that is the plan? Next, the Prime Minister must keep British people safe from dangerous criminals. It was interesting to hear the comments in his statement about early release. Before the summer, I sat with women who had experienced some of the most horrific crimes imaginable, and the perpetrators of those crimes were about to be let out of prison early. The Prime Minister told those women that it was too difficult to keep their perpetrators in jail. Then he changed his mind. The family of PC Andrew Harper appealed to the Prime Minister not to release his killers early. Again, the Prime Minister told them that it was a non-starter. Then he changed his mind. The Conservatives told the Government to create new spaces in the existing prison estate, and to get foreign-born criminals out of our jails. The Government said that we were wrong, but now they are doing both. The Prime Minister has had five different positions on early release in six weeks, putting the victims through hell with his indecision. Will he now set out a timeline for his promise to get more foreign national prisoners out of British prisons? As well as keeping the country safe, the Prime Minister’s next big challenge will be making people in this country feel richer. The biggest mistake that Labour has made in office so far, and there have been quite a few to choose from, is that it has crushed our economy under the weight of nearly £70 billion in new taxes. The Prime Minister was not here for that, so I will give him the list: the jobs tax, the family farm tax, the family business tax, taxes on pensioners, taxes on workers and taxes on businesses. That is £3,500 a year for every working family. He says that he cares about the cost of living; Labour’s taxes have made that worse. Those taxes have cost people their jobs—thousands of jobs in oil and gas, and thousands of jobs in industry across our country. The recruitment market for new graduates is the worst it has ever been. There are 50% fewer vacancies than last year, which was already the worst on record. If the Prime Minister does not change course, he too, like every other Labour Prime Minister, will leave office with unemployment higher than it was when he came in. Can he guarantee, here and now, on the Floor of the House, that there will be no more tax rises in the autumn Budget? The year is 2026, yet the Prime Minister said in his statement that everything has gone wrong since the 1980s. He is still complaining about Margaret Thatcher. I am 46 years old, Mr Speaker—I may not look it, but I am. He is talking about a woman who became Prime Minister before I was born. He is living in the past, and he wants to take us back to the 1970s. We Conservatives are for the future, not the past. That is the difference between them and us. His ideas are all about more Government control, more spending, more tax and more politicians. The Conservatives want people to keep more of their own money. We want businesses to grow, invest, expand and create more jobs. That is the difference between the Labour party and the Conservative party. His diagnosis is completely wrong. His theory of growth is completely wrong. He thinks that if the Government spend more money, we will all get richer, but that is not how this works. Companies are not leaving our shores because there is not enough government. Another difference between us is in dealing with the ballooning welfare bill. Up and down this country, hard-working people are fed up of going to work and paying for their neighbours to sit at home with mild health conditions that do not stop them working. They are fed up of hearing, as we did this summer, that working in Boots is not good for your mental health—ridiculous. We are on the side of those hard-working, fed-up people. I ask the Prime Minister: will he stand up to his Back Benchers in a way that his predecessor never could and cut the benefits bill? It is a simple question. The Prime Minister engineered it so that he could have as long a summer holiday as possible, so he should be ready with some answers. I am even hearing rumours that he does not want to do Prime Minister’s questions next week, but it is my job to ask him serious questions, and it is time for him to start answering. [Interruption.] I know Labour Members do not like hearing the questions, but they are going to hear them. It is my job to speak on behalf of all the people out there who want to know what he has planned, and it is time for him to start answering some serious questions. Governing is hard, but the country needs the Prime Minister to succeed. Where it is in the national interest, I will help him. He may find that Conservative votes come in handy when Labour MPs are too scared to do the right thing. Britain faces many serious challenges to our national and economic security. There are difficult decisions to make, and they will show whether the Prime Minister is serious about governing. On defence, his own Chancellor said that 3% spending was needed to keep British troops safe; now, apparently, he does not believe that. On illegal migration, Labour scrapped the Rwanda scheme; now it appears to be considering a Rwanda-style scheme of its own. On prisons, the Prime Minister said that dangerous criminals could not be exempted from early release, and then he changed his mind. This country cannot afford a Government swerving all over the place. Labour has already tried government by U-turn, and it does not work. If he wants to be different from his predecessor, and wants to live up to the optimistic vision that he is painting, he is going to have to start taking this job seriously. That is not what we heard from the Prime Minister today, but that is what the Conservatives are offering.

• 15 Jul 2026 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  Can I start by thanking the Prime Minister for the way that he responded to the murder of Ann Widdecombe last week? This is the first opportunity I have had on the Floor of the House to commemorate her life. A lot has been said about how she died. I want to focus on celebrating the life she lived. Ann was a woman of high principle and profound beliefs, with a wicked sense of humour—a wonderful combination of being a serious person who did not take herself too seriously. She changed her faith from Anglican to Catholic and from the Conservative party to the Brexit party, but she always remained part of the Conservative family. You might not always have agreed with her, but Ann Widdecombe was a woman who said what she meant and meant what she said. Hers was an honesty that made our politics better. Her wit and forthrightness sat alongside a deep humanity and decency. Ann had wonderful turns of phrase. She said: “We need less political correctness and more political courage.” She said: “If we deny our culture, become nothing and everything, that weakens us.” She also said: “It is a truth universally unacknowledged at Westminster that there is life after politics.” With that in mind, I turn to this Prime Minister’s final questions. Mr Speaker, I wanted to make sure that I got the tone right today, so I looked back at the Prime Minister’s final questions to Boris Johnson. Luckily for the Prime Minister, I plan to be much gentler than he was that day. Week after week, the Prime Minister and I have clashed at these Dispatch Boxes and rarely agreed on anything, but there is one thing that I admired. When President Zelensky was attacked in the White House, the Prime Minister showed leadership and invited him to Downing Street. That was the right thing to do. Ukraine is on the frontline in the battle for freedom, so does the Prime Minister agree that cross-party support for their cause must endure?

• 15 Jul 2026 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  The Prime Minister may not think so now, but it is a tribute to him that not a single sitting Labour MP could beat him. Not the right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner) who could not count her taxes, not the right hon. Member for Sheffield Heeley (Louise Haigh) who could not count how many phones she had lost—“lost, lost, lost”—and definitely not the right hon. Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting) who could not count to 81. This is my last exchange with the right hon. and learned Gentleman. I know how much his wife and children mean to him, and that they are in the Gallery. As everyone here knows, our families make a huge sacrifice for our choice to enter public life. I hope that he will allow me to draw our time together to a close by thanking them for the love and support they have given him throughout his time in office.

• 15 Jul 2026 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  That is a lovely statement that the Prime Minister has just made to Pooja; I am sure that the whole House will agree. I think that the whole House will also agree that he gave a very diplomatic answer to the question I asked on advice to his successor. Having heard that answer, I say this to Labour MPs with as much goodwill as I can muster— [ Laughter. ] —we have been where you are. Changing Prime Minister is not a silver bullet; indeed, it may be that the Labour party’s troubles are only just beginning. Solving the fundamental problems in this country will require difficult decisions, and you also need to know how to get things done. The Prime Minister once said that when he pulled the levers, nothing happened. Why did he think that was?

• 15 Jul 2026 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  I know how much the Prime Minister has come to enjoy our exchanges—in fact, in the King’s Speech debate he told me that on difficult days my input was “always a ray of sunshine.” —[ Official Report , 13 May 2026; Vol. 786, c. 24.] He might not have answered many of the questions I asked him, but at least he turned up. It is important to respect Parliament, so does the Prime Minister agree that his successor should come to this place and answer questions rather than scurrying away for the summer?

• 15 Jul 2026 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  I thank the Prime Minister for that answer. No doubt, he will be disappointed that he will not be emulating his hero Harold Wilson in winning multiple elections. However, we all hope that he may be about to emulate him in another way: by being the Prime Minister when England win the world cup. That is something that every single one of us in the House should get behind—especially the SNP. [ Laughter. ] As Leader of the Opposition, the Prime Minister led his party to a landslide after a historic defeat—I fully intend to do the same—but if you want to lead this country, you should set out your plans to do so. We have, but one politician intends to spend the summer avoiding scrutiny, refusing to set out his plans. Does the Prime Minister not agree that what the country deserves is a televised debate between Nigel Farage and Count Binface?

• 15 Jul 2026 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  I thank the Prime Minister for that answer and for paying tribute to so many of the people he has been able to help. In fact, I remember when I started this job, the Prime Minister was very helpful to me, saying that I would not last the year. Life comes at you fast. [ Laughter. ] He spent a long time laughing at how I had lost control of my party; I think he should have been paying attention to his Back Benchers instead of mine. Everyone in politics would do well to remember how quickly political fortunes can change. I know that the Prime Minister has been asked and that he is being diplomatic, but on that note, does he have any advice for his successor?

• 1 Jul 2026 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  We understand it perfectly, and that is why— [ Interruption. ] Yes, we do. That is why the Prime Minister is leaving and so is his Chancellor. Labour Members are laughing and pretending, but if he was doing such a fabulous job, why did he resign? Defence of the realm is the first duty of Government. [ Interruption. ] Yes, it is the first duty of Government. I do not need to read again what General Sir Richard Barrons or Lord Richard Dannatt said. Maybe Labour Members did not hear it the first time—they can rewatch the clips—but defence of the realm is the first duty of Government. Britain is facing a moment of danger unlike anything in our lifetimes and unlike anything that we saw in government. We need a plan to fund our armed forces that meets this moment. They are the Government for now, not for 10 years ago, and the fact is that Labour’s plan is too weak, it is too little and it is too late. If the Prime Minister’s successor does not want to be complicit in this failure, he should come out and condemn this plan. The money must be found, and that money should come from cutting welfare—something that these Labour MPs will not do. If Labour cannot defend our country, what is the point of them?

• 1 Jul 2026 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  The Prime Minister says that he is delivering this outside the Budget. That is right: it should have been in the last Budget. The strategic defence review was published last year. It should have been in the last Budget, not the next Budget. According to the intelligence assessment that the Prime Minister himself has said we have, there could be an attack on NATO by 2030, but this plan does not deliver until after that. Not only is £5 billion missing from his plan, but it relies on £11 billion of unidentified savings. The plan has unravelled. It is a total dereliction of duty, and I am not the only one who thinks so. The Times said today that the Prime Minister’s “legacy”— [Interruption.] Well, why don’t we wait and see what The Times said? It said that the Prime Minister’s “legacy is betrayal, failure and vulnerability” —and that is one of the nicer headlines. I will ask again, because the Prime Minister did not answer the question. Did the right hon. Member for Makerfield know that he was going to have to find £5 billion for the Prime Minister’s plan?

• 1 Jul 2026 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  The Prime Minister did not say that it was enough, and that was a very long list of things that he is not yet paying for. It is not right and it is not fair—certainly not to our troops, who put their lives on the line for all of us every single day. Three weeks ago, the Defence Secretary, the right hon. Member for Rawmarsh and Conisbrough (John Healey), resigned saying, “I am being forced to make decisions that would…increase the risk to personnel on operations, and could make the country less safe.” Since that letter, the Prime Minister has increased spending by only 0.01%. We can count, the generals can count, and the Kremlin can count, and his plan does not add up. How can he possibly stand there and say that this is enough?

• 1 Jul 2026 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  Can I associate myself and those on the Opposition Benches with the Prime Minister’s comments about Venezuela, and also about the Lib Dems? [ Laughter. ] But seriously, the Chief of the Defence Staff made it known that the armed forces needed a minimum of £28 billion more to defend the country. Can the Prime Minister tell us why he thinks half that amount is enough?

• 1 Jul 2026 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  The Chief of the Defence Staff is an honourable man, and what he and the NATO Secretary-General have done is welcome the fact that the plan has been published—just that it has been published. They have been waiting for more than a year. The strategic defence review was last year. The Chief of the Defence Staff is an honourable man who is having to make do with very little. The threat level has dramatically changed in the two years that the Prime Minister has been in office. Since he took office, Poland has increased its funding to 4.8% and Germany has increased its funding to 3.7%. This year, Russia will spend 10% of GDP on defence. Meanwhile, Britain is spending it all on welfare. Even the limited plan that the Prime Minister has announced has completely unravelled, because he has not found the money to pay for it. It is £5 billion short. We all know that he is leaving this mess to his successor. Can he confirm that the right hon. Member for Makerfield (Andy Burnham) has agreed to fund the shortfall?

• 1 Jul 2026 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  It does not sound as if the Prime Minister has told the right hon. Member for Makerfield to find £5 billion. He says that any Labour Prime Minister would stand behind this plan. Let me tell him what Lord Dannatt, the former head of the Army, said yesterday. He said that the Prime Minister had chosen the “cheap option”, and he called the plan “woefully inadequate”. Let me tell him what General Sir Richard Barrons, one of the authors of his own strategic defence review, said yesterday: “we are simply not going to be ready to defend this country properly.” That is what they are saying. The reason the Prime Minister is in this mess is that he was too weak to cut welfare when he had the chance. There are only three ways to find the missing £5 billion: increase borrowing, increase taxes, or cut welfare. Which one will the Prime Minister recommend to the right hon. Member for Makerfield?