Kemi Badenoch MP: speeches 2025

Speeches

• 17 Dec 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  Of course the Prime Minister is not going to ban doctors’ strikes; he does not have the baubles! [ Interruption. ] Labour Members can shake their heads all they like, but we all know who is running their party, and it is not him. The trade unions did not just buy him for Christmas; they bought him for life. This matters for all those people out there facing a difficult new year. The Prime Minister has lost control. It is not the levers that do not work; it is him. He is breaking every promise he has made. He promised to bring down unemployment—it is up. He promised that he would not increase taxes—they are up. He promised to end the doctors’ strike—they are on strike, again. He said that his main mission was economic growth, but the economy is shrinking. With a year like that, is it any surprise that all his MPs want for Christmas is a new leader?

• 17 Dec 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  I thank the Prime Minister for his words on antisemitism. What happened at Bondi Beach was an atrocity, but words of solidarity are not enough. We know the evil we face. Islamic extremism is a threat to western civilisation. It abuses our democracies and subverts our institutions. It is incompatible with British values. It is not enough just to protect Jewish communities—we must drive Islamic extremism out of this country. I would also like to send my best wishes to our armed forces, the emergency services and everyone who will be working over Christmas. I would like to take this opportunity to wish you, Mr Speaker, the House staff and all Members of this House, including the Prime Minister, a very merry Christmas. It is the Prime Minister’s second Christmas in Downing Street, and by his own admission he is not in control. He says that nothing happens when he pulls the levers. Does he blame himself or the levers?

• 17 Dec 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  I do not know what planet the Prime Minister is living on, but unemployment has gone up every single month under him, youth unemployment is at record levels, and graduate recruitment is at its lowest ever. He promised that he would not increase taxes on working people, but he has. Last year he increased national insurance and last month he froze income tax thresholds, so will the Prime Minister finally be honest and admit that he broke his promise on tax?

• 17 Dec 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  The Prime Minister is talking about non-entities. Has he looked at his Cabinet? They are a bunch of turkeys; they could fit right in at a Bernard Matthews factory. He is one to talk. Last week, his MPs were calling him a “caretaker Prime Minister”; after what he has done to the economy, they should be calling him the undertaker Prime Minister. Let us look at what else the Prime Minister has promised. He gave his word that he would help pubs, yet they face a 15% rise in business rates because of his Budget. Will he be honest and admit that his taxes are forcing pubs to close?

• 17 Dec 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  What pubs has the Prime Minister been speaking to? Labour Members have been barred from all of them! [ Interruption. ] I do not know why Labour Members are shaking their heads; it is not my fault that they have nowhere to drown their sorrows. Let us look at another broken promise. The Prime Minister promised to end the doctors’ strike. He gave the doctors a 28.9% pay rise. What did he get in return? This morning, they have gone back on strike for the third time, in the middle of winter—in the middle of the worst flu crisis in years. This should not be allowed. We already ban strikes by the police and the Army, so why does he not put patients first, show some backbone and ban doctors’ strikes?

• 17 Dec 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  I am not sure exactly what that had to do with the question. The fact is that the Prime Minister promised economic growth, but the only thing that has grown is his list of broken promises. He promised to reduce unemployment, but yesterday unemployment hit its highest level since the pandemic—it has gone up every single month since he came into office. Why is that?

• 10 Dec 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  Let me answer the question for the Prime Minister. He is being called a caretaker because everyone can see that he has lost control of his party, and this lot on the Government Front Bench are all so busy trying to replace him— [ Interruption. ]

• 10 Dec 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  Wrong! There are now 400 fewer teachers since the Education Secretary came into office— [ Interruption. ] She is shaking her head, but it is on the Department for Education website. Does she not check it once in a while? I can understand why the right hon. Lady is angry; we are all angry at the mess she is making. The Prime Minister does not know what is going on in energy. He does not know what is going on in education. Does he know anything about what is going on in the Home Office? Last year, the Prime Minister promised to recruit 13,000 more police officers. How is that going?

• 10 Dec 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  I echo the sentiments of the Prime Minister: the thoughts of the whole House will rightly be with the family of Lance Corporal Hooley, who tragically died supporting Ukraine in its fight for freedom. Can the right hon. Gentleman tell the House why his own MPs are describing him as a “caretaker Prime Minister”?

• 10 Dec 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  I asked the Prime Minister about energy bills. You could power the national grid on all that hot air. He promised to cut energy bills by £300. Energy bills have risen by £187. Let’s look at someone else who is making a mess; let’s look at the Education Secretary—ah, there she is. Labour pledged to recruit 6,500 more teachers. Can the Prime Minister tell the House: how many extra teachers are there since she became Education Secretary?

• 10 Dec 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  Labour Members can make as much noise as they like. We all know that this lot are so busy trying to replace the Prime Minister that they have taken their eyes off the ball. Let us start— [ Interruption. ] Wait for it, wait for it! Let us start with the Energy Secretary, who wants to recycle himself as leader. He said he would cut families’ energy bills by £300. Can the Prime Minister tell the House: how much have energy bills fallen by since the election?

• 10 Dec 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  I asked the Prime Minister how many appointments have been lost to strike action. He does not know. Let me tell him. We have lost 93,000 appointments to strikes since the Health Secretary gave doctors a massive pay rise. [ Interruption. ] It is the truth; I know Labour MPs would not know the truth if it punched them in the face, but I am telling them the truth. It is no wonder that we read this morning that the former Deputy Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner), has said that she would rather stick pins in her eyes than be on the Health Secretary’s golden ticket. The Prime Minister congratulates himself on 5 million extra appointments. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!”] Yeah, yeah: in our last year in office, we delivered 6.5 million extra appointments. Under Labour, everything is getting worse: jobs, bills, police numbers, teacher numbers. Everything is getting worse. The Cabinet should be doing their own jobs. What are they doing? They are trying to compete for the caretaker’s job. The only person who does not want the Prime Minister’s job is the Chancellor—she is just trying to cling on to her own. Is it not time that the Prime Minister admits that Labour isn’t working?

• 10 Dec 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  Wrong again. I asked the Prime Minister how many police officers; there are now 1,300 fewer officers than at the election. I do not know whether the Home Secretary wants the Prime Minister’s job, but I read that she is having conversations with Tony Blair, because he has already given up on the Prime Minister. Why don’t we talk about the Health Secretary? Let’s see how he is doing. We know he definitely wants the Prime Minister’s job. He said he would end the doctors’ strikes, so can the Prime Minister tell the House how many appointments have been lost to strike action since last July?

• 3 Dec 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  No one believes a word the Prime Minister says. We now know the black hole was fake, the Chancellor’s book was fake, her CV was fake—even her chess claims are made up. She does not belong in the Treasury; she belongs in la-la land. The Government raised taxes on working people—that is £16 billion—to increase benefits to protect them from their Back Benchers. The Prime Minister now boasts about removing the two-child benefit cap, but he used to say that it was unaffordable. He even removed the Whip from seven Labour Members for wanting the same thing. He is very happy to throw them under a bus when it pleases him. I ask the Prime Minister, how did it suddenly become affordable at the very time he needed to save his own skin?

• 3 Dec 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  Let me first pay tribute to Sir John Stanley, who passed away yesterday. Sir John was a dedicated MP for 41 years, and we send our deepest condolences to his family. Does the Prime Minister believe that when an organisation descends into total shambles, the person at the top should resign?

• 3 Dec 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  The Prime Minister does not want to answer a question about taking responsibility, because he likes to blame everyone except himself, and so does the Chancellor. We now know that the head of the Office for Budget Responsibility was forced out for telling the truth: that the Chancellor did not need to raise taxes on working people. We also know that the Chancellor was briefing the media and twisting the facts—all so she could break her promises and raise taxes. If she were a CEO, she would have been fired, and she might even have been prosecuted for market abuse. That is why we have written to the Financial Conduct Authority, so will the Prime Minister ensure the Chancellor fully co-operates with any investigation?

• 3 Dec 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  Let me tell the Prime Minister: making the whole country poorer and destroying jobs is not how to keep children out of poverty. In the past week we have seen broken promises, broken leadership and a broken Budget for “Benefits Street”— [ Interruption. ] The Education Secretary is chuntering. I ask her, where is the money for the children with special educational needs? Where is it? It is coming out of her budget.

• 3 Dec 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  The Prime Minister talks about losing the plot. Let me read to him what his own Cabinet Members are saying—that the handling of the Budget has been “a disaster from start to finish.” Who said that? Was it him? Was it her? It was probably her, actually—it was probably the Chancellor! [Laughter.] One of the Prime Minister’s Ministers said that the Chancellor and the Prime Minister look “weak and incompetent”. The country agrees. We know that there were endless Treasury briefings to justify raising taxes on hard-working people to pay for benefits and those briefings had real-world consequences. Hundreds of thousands of people drew down their pension, an irreversible act. The Prime Minister pays tribute to the head of the OBR. If the head of the OBR had to resign over market-sensitive leaks, why is the Chancellor still in her job?

• 3 Dec 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  She is shaking her head; she does not know where that money is coming from. Let us be clear: unemployment is up. There are more children now growing up in workless households because people are losing their jobs. It is not just the head of the OBR who is losing his job; millions of people have been hung out to dry by the Government’s Budget. Is it not the truth that behind it all is a Prime Minister who only cares about one person’s job—his own?

• 3 Dec 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  If all of this is true, why did the Prime Minister take the Whip away from the people asking for it? Let us remind the Chancellor that exactly a year ago today, on 3 December 2024, she said: “We will never have to repeat a Budget like this one”. —[ Official Report , 3 December 2024; Vol. 758, c. 149.] If only! The Prime Minister may have taken the Whip away then, but the rebels have had the last laugh—he has lost. He cannot run his own party, let alone the country. Let me quote the hard-left former shadow Chancellor, the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell). He said: “We’ve won.” He is right, isn’t he?

• 26 Nov 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  The Prime Minister talks about the decisions that the Chancellor has already taken. If they were that great, we would not have all the farmers protesting outside. The Prime Minister does not want to talk about leaks, but we can see that the chaos in No. 10 is having real-world consequences. Instead of focusing on the economy, they have been fighting like rats. Several journalists reported that No. 10 sources had briefed against the Health Secretary and other senior Cabinet Ministers; the Prime Minister then told us that these briefings did not come from No. 10. Will he repeat, on the Floor of the House, the claim that none of his advisers has briefed against members of the Cabinet?

• 26 Nov 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  That sounds like a no. I have never heard the Prime Minister speak so highly of people avoiding their taxes. In summary, this just looks like a Government who are a slow-motion car crash. The Prime Minister’s Cabinet Ministers are briefing against each other, his MPs are planning for life after him, and the most chaotic run-up to a Budget in recent memory is happening on his watch. Even the Chief Whip is telling MPs that he wants out. The truth is simple: his MPs do not trust him, the markets do not trust him, and the public certainly do not trust him. When will he finally accept that the chaos starts and ends with him?

• 26 Nov 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  The Prime Minister expects us to believe him, but no one does. We all know that he did not have a serious leak inquiry. What he did was ask Morgan McSweeney to investigate Morgan McSweeney, and then Morgan McSweeney discovered that Morgan McSweeney was innocent. All this calls into question the Prime Minister’s judgment. We read this weekend that he wants the former Deputy Prime Minister back in his Cabinet; he must have forgotten that she had to resign only a few months ago for tax evasion. When did the Prime Minister decide that lawbreakers can be lawmakers?

• 26 Nov 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  We are talking about the leaks. The Prime Minister does not seem to appreciate the impact of these Budget leaks on the UK economy. Even the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister has said this morning that the leaks were unacceptable, so will the Prime Minister launch an investigation into the Budget leaks and punish those responsible?

• 26 Nov 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  Nobody wants this Budget, Mr Speaker! We have had resignations, hostile briefings and leaks galore. Even in the past 10 minutes, there has been an unprecedented leak of the OBR analysis. These leaks have been so serious that even the former chief economist of the Bank of England has said that Labour’s “fiscal fandango” is “the single biggest reason growth has flatlined”. Does the Prime Minister agree with Andy Haldane, and does he have an explanation for this complete shambles?