Kemi Badenoch has said maternity pay is “excessive” and people should exercise “more personal responsibility”.
The shadow communities secretary said one of the principles she was fighting her Tory leadership contest around was a call for the state to do less, as “the answer cannot be let the government help people to have babies”.
In an interview with Times Radio, she was asked if she thought maternity pay was at the right level.
Badenoch said: “Maternity pay varies, depending on who you work for. But statutory maternity pay is a function of tax, tax comes from people who are working. We’re taking from one group of people and giving to another. This, in my view, is excessive.
“Businesses are closing, businesses are not starting in the UK, because they say that the burden of regulation is too high.”
Asked again if she thought maternity pay was excessive, Badenoch replied: “I think it’s gone too far the other way, in terms of general business regulation. We need to allow businesses, especially small businesses, to make more of those decisions.
“The exact amount of maternity pay, in my view, is neither here nor there. We need to make sure that we are creating an environment where people can work and people can have more freedom to make their own decisions.”
The Tory leadership hopeful was told that the current level of maternity pay was necessary for people who couldn’t afford to have a baby without it.
Badenoch replied: “We need to have more personal responsibility. There was a time when there wasn’t any maternity pay and people were having more babies.”
A source from a rival camp quipped: “Badenoch’s mad remarks are one of the only things that could send our [parties] approval ratings down even further.”
Statutory maternity pay is available to women who are employed and earn an average of at least £123 a week.
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It provides 90% of a person’s salary for six weeks, and then whichever is lower of 90% of their salary or £184.03 a week for the next 33 weeks. The payment is liable for income tax and national insurance.
Badenoch added: “The answer cannot be let the government help people to have babies, or let the government create a football regulator, or let the government ban smoking in pub gardens.
“Government is not good at this stuff. It needs to focus on key things it does well, defence, security and so on.”