Kemi Badenoch MP: speeches

Speeches

• 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?

• 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?