Conservative leadership hopeful Kemi Badenoch has argued that birth rates in the UK are falling because people are ‘scared to have families’.
The former business secretary’s campaign was bruised yesterday by a row over whether she had described maternity pay as ‘excessive’ during a radio interview.
During a discussion about the extent of the benefit yesterday, she said: ‘We need to have more personal responsibility. There was a time when there wasn’t any maternity pay and people were having more babies.’
Badenoch sought to get the record straight in an appearance at a party conference event this morning by describing the benefit as one way to help ‘make life comfortable’ for people who want to start a family.
She was not directly asked about her comments on maternity pay during the event – organised by the Conservative Women’s Organisation (CWO) – but she brought it up in her answer to a question about the country’s birth rates.
The North West Essex MP added: ‘Some people feel that they can’t afford children, I often think that too many people are worried about the money more than they need to be.
‘But we need to give people confidence. People are scared to have families, they’re worried about whether they can afford them, they’re worried about whether they will have birth trauma.’
In an appearance on the conference’s main stage this afternoon, Badenoch was again asked about the maternity pay comments.
She said: ‘I think maternity pay is quite important, and this is actually a long discussion we were having about the role of the state in deciding what businesses should do.’
Badenoch compared the coverage of her comments to Margaret Thatcher’s famous quote that there is ‘no such thing as society’, saying both were taken out of context.
Earlier in the CWO event, she made the bizarre claim that children were being taught about the sexual act of fisting in schools – but did not make clear where she had heard about it.
She said: ‘We need to make sure that we are teaching children how to be safe and look after themselves without introducing adult themes that don’t have any place in the curriculum.
‘I remember someone sent me this unbelievable example, I know it’s not 9pm but this unbelievable example, of materials for children that had fisting in there.’
Such topics are not typically included on the curriculum for sex education at any age.
Badenoch is facing off against James Cleverly, Robert Jenrick and Tom Tugendhat to become the next leader of the opposition.
All four have crammed their conference timetables full of Q&A events, hustings and speeches to make their case in front of party members and MPs ahead of the next round of voting next week.
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