Kemi Badenoch today threw down the gauntlet to Andy Burnham over welfare, as she set out plans to slash £36 billion from the bill. The Tory leader, flanked by shadow work and pensions secretary Helen Whately, warned that the Prime Minister ‘lacks the will and he lacks the support of his party to even try to cut welfare’. She decried that the £180 billion annual bill amounted to more than the entire GDP of Ukraine and more than £4,000 for every UK taxpayer. Badenoch also pointed to the fact that ‘double amputees run marathons’ and autistic men lead some of the world’s most successful tech giants as evidence that disability benefits have become something of a free-for-all.
The Conservatives are seeking to make £36 billion in welfare savings by ending claims for mild mental health conditions and routine back and joint pain
The Conservatives are seeking to make £36 billion in welfare savings by ending claims for mild mental health conditions and routine back and joint pain. The party would also bar non-EU foreign nationals with settled status from claiming, bring back the two-child benefit cap and replace cash payments of child Disability Living Allowance for mild learning and behavioural conditions with support.
At this morning’s Westminster press conference, Badenoch was pressed on why the Tories had lost control of benefits in the first place – and why, after 14 years in office, they had failed to put things right. She was also reminded that, in 2016, the Conservatives faced a backbench revolt and Sir Iain Duncan Smith resigned as work and pensions secretary in protest at changes to PIP announced in George Osborne’s Budget.
Badenoch argued that circumstances have ‘got a lot worse’ and that what we are seeing now ‘is a welfare state with an economy attached to it’. Channelling Tony Blair, she insisted that she leads her party while Burnham follows. ‘The Conservative party, under my leadership, is very much united on this issue. There is no one in my party who is saying we should not be reducing welfare? We absolutely have to,’ she said.
Badenoch was careful to distinguish her criticism of Labour’s welfare policy from Alan Milburn’s work, suggesting his mission commands significant cross-party respect and consensus. Indeed, she went out of her way to praise the Neets tsar, saying ‘there will be many good things’ in his report, due next week, which the shadow cabinet has been briefed on. Framing the coming battle as Badenoch against Burnham’s backbenchers, rather than the Conservatives against Milburn, she said: ‘Our issue is not with Alan Milburn. Our issue is with Andy Burnham and Labour MPs who just want to look for who they can tax so they can pay for more benefits.’
Recent polling suggests Badenoch may be starting to turn around the Tories’ toxic reputation after 14 years of broken promises and failure to deliver on so much of what voters elected them to do. A More in Common survey published today puts the Conservatives on 25 per cent, five points ahead of Nigel Farage’s party on 20. Badenoch’s repeated insistence that her party is under new management, alongside her proposed remedies for issues such as migration and welfare, appears to be gaining traction.
But the Tories still have a steep hill to climb before the charge that ‘you got us into this mess’ loses its force. Today, Badenoch sought to show she is ready to take that fight to both Reform and Labour – and welfare is a key battleground for doing so.
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