KEMI Badenoch has welcomed a “series of Conservative policies” from Labour as the Government desperately try to improve the economy.
The Tory leader said her opponents had “embraced” Tory policies like deregulation which, while “welcome”, would “take years to deliver”.
Speaking at Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday, Badenoch claimed that Labour’s embrace of “Conservative policies” was being undermined by their poor handling of the economy.
It comes after a speech by Rachel Reeves (below) earlier in the day in which the Chancellor announced she was backing a third runway at Heathrow and further deregulation in a bid to boost economic growth.
Badenoch said: “When Conservatives left office, we had the fastest economic growth in the G7. But what is the Government doing for growth now? It’s destroying it.
"Let’s look at the Employment Bill. The Government’s own figures say it will cost businesses £5 billion a year. It clearly fails the Prime Minister’s growth test. Will he drop it?”
Keir Starmer said: “I think the proposition they left a golden inheritance was tested on July 4."
The Prime Minister pointed to recent indications that the economy is picking up, including a new report by accountants PwC which found Britain was the second-best place in the world to invest.
He went on: “There’s more to do with reforming planning and regulation, building the new homes that we need, supporting a third runway at Heathrow, and as [Badenoch] admitted to the CBI in November, ‘there’s no point in me just complaining about Labour’, she said, ‘it’s obvious that we Conservatives lost the confidence of business’.
"We’re not taking lectures from them.”
Elsewhere, Badenoch accused Labour of bringing forward an “unemployment bill”, which she claimed would put more people out of work and push up prices, while also claiming Labour’s drive to reduce the benefits bill as a Tory idea.
She added: “All his ideas are the ones that we thought of. He needs to make sure that we deliver for growth now as well as the future. To grow our economy, we must get more people off sickness and welfare, and into work.”
Badenoch (below) said that the Government’s Employment Bill would increase benefits entitlements, taking the country in the “opposite direction”, with officials estimating the changes would increase the cost of employee sick pay from £600 million to £1bn.
She added: “That will mean higher prices, fewer jobs, less growth. Will he drop these measures from the bill?”
Starmer replied: “No, I think they are good for workers and good for growth. This is the same argument they made against the minimum wage and every protection for workers.”
He accused the Tory leader of talking “nonsense”, after Badenoch said the bill would provide “great employment” for lawyers, claiming it would allow a new worker to take their employer to a tribunal on the afternoon of their first day.
She added: “I know the Prime Minister loves the legal profession, but he needs to stop being a lawyer and start being a leader.”
Starmer replied: “She knows that anybody that understands anything about the bill or any employment law will know you can’t start in the morning and go to the tribunal in the afternoon.
“Now, we know she is not a lawyer, she is clearly not a leader, if she keeps on like this, she is going to be the next lettuce.”
