Conservative leadership bids - Maternity pay comments

[LoobiJee]

The Guardian is quoting Kemi Badenoch using the word “excessive” when talking about tax as ‘taking from one group of people and giving to another’, when questioned about maternity pay.

I mean, the whole point of tax is that it’s about taking money from individual citizens and businesses and using it to pay for things that might not be possible without taking and pooling those funds. Such as, let’s say, pandemic preparations.

She fails to mention that one of the reasons businesses are failing is because of the additional costs of imports and exports post-Brexit.

She also fails to mention that there was a time when houses didn’t costs six times your salary, when rents were lower, when council houses were being built, and when the UK’s economic infrastructure was owned by the tax payer not by overseas multinational corporations.

Quote from the Guardian coverage below.

Badenoch says maternity pay benefits 'excessive'

Kemi Badenoch has said she thinks maternity pay is too high.

In an interview with Times Radio, she was asked if she thought maternity pay was at the right level. She replied:

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.

When asked to confirm that she thinks maternity pay is excessive, she 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 enviroment where people can work and people can have more freedom to make their own decisions.

When it was put to her that level of maternity pay was important for people who could not otherwise afford to have a baby, Badenoch 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.

Statutory maternity pay is 90% of average weekly earnings for the first six weeks, and then £184 per week, or 90% of average pay, for the next 33 weeks.

Badenoch says she practises what she preaches in this regard. According to Blue Ambition, Michael Ashcroft’s useful and mostly positive biography of Badenoch, when she was head of digital operations at the Spectator, before becoming an MP, and she became pregnant with her second child, she resigned instead of taking maternity leave. “She told me she thought it would be unfair to ask us to keep her job open while she was on maternity leave,” Fraser Nelson, the Spectator editor, is quoted in the book as saying. “She would have been within her rights not to have done that.”

Badenoch might have been helped in making this decision by the fact that her husband is an investment banker.

You could have taken a leaf out of John Crace's book and called it KemiKazi 😂

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/sep/29/moderation-out-and-madness-to-the-fore-in-the-tories-birmingham-echo-chamber?CMP=share_btn_url

Her comments are atrocious punching down, I really hope she is talking herself out of the leadership job.

Ok maybe we can all pay less tax then and not have any maternity pay? No thought not.

The maternity comment was about how Government benefits are actually funded by tax payers. And that she thinks maternity pay shouldn't be the responsibility of the state (well at least not at the current level).

Was it? Not according to her retraction. Although of her course her retraction makes no sense as an interpretation of what she said. Your interpretation looks correct to me. But it's not what she's now saying.

So it is in a way a bit like Labour saying tax payers shouldn't have to fund pensioners fuel bills.

Which she calls an "attack on pensioners". Despite calling for means testing the WFA two years ago in the leadership election.

She was talking about statutory maternity pay, which is not excessive! Then she tried to claim she was talking about something else. She’s completely incoherent.

''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 is a ridiculous statement. Working mothers are not 'another' group. They are taxpayers.

I am not here to defend her, but if you some sort of free marketeer, small government, small taxes, etc., then you are nearly always saying the state shouldn't be "interferring" in people's private lives.

This is based on some nonsensical notion that everyone can get work that is well paid and has benefits via your contract (eg when big finance companies starting offering to help pay for freezing the eggs of younger female employees). So probably thinks companies like this would be able to pay for extended maternity leave should it be cut back in terms of the length of time the Government pays.

But that doesn't nothing for those, which many women are, in lower paid jobs, with very few work benefits, nor how state run employers, eg the NHS, would be able to cover additional costs should there be a cut to maternity pay.

But for me the most crass remark was saying in the past there was a higher birth rate and every body managed without maternity pay. Well they probably didn't manage but relied on families at a time when fewer women were going out to work.

I just cant believe she is being so careless in what she is saying, nor thinking through the responses she will get.

That's more what I am surprised at. That in the past she always appeared well briefed and with well reasoned come back (in terms of her politics).

Very strange.

This is a ridiculous statement. Working mothers are not 'another' group. They are taxpayers.

But not when they are on maternity leave.

Its the old Tory and in fact new Labour tactic of stoking resentment that some people, those having babies, those on sick leave, and taking from those who never have babies or take sick leave.

This is a ridiculous statement. Working mothers are not 'another' group. They are taxpayers.

But not when they are on maternity leave.

Its the old Tory and in fact new Labour tactic of stoking resentment that some people, those having babies, those on sick leave, and taking from those who never have babies or take sick leave.

Not according to her retraction. Although of her course her retraction makes no sense as an interpretation of what she said. Your interpretation looks correct to me. But it's not what she's now saying.

Sorry I missed the retraction.

Although probably dont have the head space to take that it.

That was my first thought when I read that quote too.

To receive statutory maternity pay, you have to be in employment, so you are a tax payer.

Do you think it’s possible she doesn’t know how mat pay works?

Okay I couldn't help myself and so looked at her twiX account.

Of course maternity pay isn’t excessive…no mother of 3 kids thinks that. But we must talk about the burden of excessive business regulation otherwise we might as well be the Labour Party.
https://x.com/KemiBadenoch/status/1840413421222633820

So now she is saying its not that its a burden on tax payers, but its unfair on businesses because it is Government interfering in how people run their business.

So whatever is good for business takes priority.

So now I am looking forward to hearing that its not fair on business to have a minumum wage.

Pretty soon she will be saying its not worth sending children to school who wont pass exams, so we could send them down the coal mines (on no the Tories closed all of them). Maybe send them to work in an Amazon warehouse?

Is she aiming to be Margaret Thatcher reborn?

Thatcherism has been described as a political platform emphasising free markets with restrained government spending and tax cuts that gets coupled with British nationalism both at home and abroad.

“I just cant believe she is being so careless in what she is saying, nor thinking through the responses she will get.
That's more what I am surprised at. That in the past she always appeared well briefed and with well reasoned come back (in terms of her politics).
Very strange.”

That’s the bit I find puzzling too. It’s like she just doesn’t understand the issue, with this.

I think there are some interesting basic ideas she raises, that are worth discussion.

My sense here, and from what she's said elsewhere, is that she thinks mothers should be in a position to take care of children, and also that it is good for people in the UK to have more children than they are having now. So I think it's fair to say that her goal isn't to make having children impossible, nor to make parents put tiny babies into care so they can work.

So as to her points: taxes taking from one group to give to another. I think, OP, there is a distinction we can make between taxes used for a collective project, where many people would have to contribute in order to accomplish a collective goal; and on the other hand taxes as a form of wealth transfer, where essentially we are taking money from some and giving it to others. That doesn't mean that wealth transfer is necessarily illegitimate, or unjust, but it's not about a collective good that is used by all, it is going to individuals.

Specifically with her comment that people used to have more children without maternity pay, we could say, why is it that even though there are still many parts of life that require the full attention of adults, like caring for small children, or elder care, household tasks, the structure of work doesn't really support that.

The cost of caring for children is not something a society can escape from, that means in terms of money but also in terms of doing the actual work. So one way or another it needs to happen.

At one time in the labour movement there was a real sense that for a good life for families, one properly paid salary should be able to support two adults and their children in a dignified way. It didn't always happen but that was seen as employers not paying a fair wage.

Now, the tendency is to want the two adults in paid work, but some of the profit from that work goes back to maternity (or paternity, potentially) pay, or in terms of government subsidy it comes from the taxpayers generally.

Is that the best way to do it? I think that's a pretty reasonable question.When it's the taxpayers who are paying, you could argue that it's a subsidy for certain employers. On the other hand, if the employer is paying, it can be quite difficult for them where they are small employers or where there are more women in that sector - they aren't large enough for it to balance out and this punishes small business and gives large businesses an advantage.

And from the other POV you could argue that it's actually better for many employers and even the state and banks to have more women in work and also commoditizing childcare, because that sends profits up the line and also taxes. - rather than paying out one salary to support a whole family. It's not necessarily clear that the state and corporations have pushed this for the good of women or children or families so much as because puts more and more human activities in the realm of the business transaction.

I'd be interested to see, not so much what she things doesn't work well, but what she thinks might be better. Even if not in detail, because I think this isn't an area we've really solved well in any modern state, a sense of what direction she thinks could be workable.

Not all taxpayers are mothers who get maternity pay though. There are men, women who don't have kids, mothers who aren't eligible for maternity pay. And even among mothers who do get it some pay more tax than others.

If everyone was just taking out what they'd contributed it would be a pointless exercise.

At one time in the labour movement there was a real sense that for a good life for families, one properly paid salary should be able to support two adults and their children in a dignified way. It didn't always happen but that was seen as employers not paying a fair wage.

It wasn't just the Labour movement. This was true during the period that saw the start of Women's Liberation building on the earlier quesioning of society norms, dropping out, green issues.

In the early days of WLM there was a lot of talk about families, family structures. Many argued that any 2 adults who shared care for a child or children should each work part time and in the non work time care for children ie equal contribution to bringing in a wage and sharing in rearing children. ( Not just about heterosexual couples, but any family that formed with how ever many adults and children)

In fact at one time some in WLM got so fed up with the focus on re-imagining the family that it was suggested that maybe WLM was just a way of making the family still seem important but live it in a different way.

The reality was that commercial interests / capitalism reacted to more women being in the workforce by realising they could then price family needs, eg housing at a higher price because families would now have 2 wages (industry never of course thinking that parents / partners might want to cut back on work hours to part time so as to be at home, with children).

In the uk of course this hiking of the cost of living by those able to price housing at 2 salaries was pushed into over drive by the sale of council housing. This created a shortage of housing, and we all know how that spiraled off.

So it could be said that WLM (and of course the Pill) did "liberate" women but only to the extent that we slotted into the commercial / capitalist concept of how life was led.

Unintended consequences.

How markets rather than Governments respond to social movements.

That is something none of us can control. The lives we live now are molded by them, not our politics or social movements.

He retraction makes no sense anyway. She has posted a clip of the interview but has cut the bits where she said "there needs to be personal responsibility. There was a time when there wasn’t any maternity pay and people were having more babies.”

I don't think there is any other interpretation of that beyond as an argument against maternity pay being necessary. No need to bring it up if your actual point is (according to her) that business regulation is excessive. It was in response to the interviewer saying that maternity pay was what meant some people could afford to have a child.

I'm sure some people will agree with her on maternity pay. But it's not a comment about excessive business regulation.

Moving away from what she did or did not say, I suspect that the Labour Party/Guardian have candidates they would prefer not to see as leader of the opposition.

Kemi has proved herself an effective orator on the question of women's rights. I will be honest and say I haven't been following her other policies, but she has the skills to oppose if not to govern. Robert Generic Jenrick seems to have positioned himself as a flag waving Tory boy to the right of the party. Members might like him - I am not sure if voters will. Turgenhat - who is he? Apparently the one Labour really don't want is Cleverley, who is articulate and comes across as moderate and considered, so potentially attractive to centrist voters if Labour don't get their act together.

As an aside - what is Starmer up to? He saw Boris blow it through lack of self-discipline. Why? Just why?

This is a really good post. But this bit:

the tendency is to want the two adults in paid work

I think it's more than that. It's pretty much now become the case that you have to have both adults in work to pay household costs as COL is so very high. In all directions: mortgage/rent, utilities, food, travel. Literally the basics are so expensive. There's not much choice there. (Or much joy)

The resentment around women taking from hard working tax payers while raising children is ridiculous. Men and childless women don't qualify for maternity pay, but they were children once. Their own mothers may have qualified. They also received free education, dental treatment and healthcare.

https://inews.co.uk/opinion/the-tory-leadership-candidate-labour-most-fears-3295482

Labour won't be worried about Badenoch. To be a threat, the leadership candidate needs to win back the centre/right voters that went to Labour last time. Badenoch is far too right wing to do that. Even before you get to her tendency to pick fights and say stupid things 😂

I'm keen for her to win. I think it'll put the Tories in the bin for even longer and just cause wrangling between them and Reform which neutralises them.

Statutory Maternity Pay is 90% of average weekly earnings for the first six weeks, and then £184 per week, or 90% of average pay, for the next 33 weeks.

I think the point she has been trying to make is that small businesses struggle under the regulation to pay stat maternity pay, especially if they have a largely female workforce. Anecdotally I have read of small businesses closing because they have 2/3 of female employees on maternity leave in a 2 year period during which they obviously had to employ temporary staff to carry out their roles. The business could not sustain the expense, so I understand what she is saying given there are currently 5.5m SMEs struggling with this.

Am not sure what the answer is - should couples planning children take out a maternity insurance policy that pays out when they have children, perhaps, with govt benefits picking up the slack for single parents/unplanned births? Should the allowance come out of the govt purse a bit like statutory sick pay (I think, but may be wrong, that employers reclaim SSP amounts, but often pay above that out of their own pockets); should employers only be liable for the first 3-6 mo and only for the first pregnancy? Other countries pay less/for shorter periods of time, but have no idea whether this is a better or worse model.

Canada: 16 weeks at 49% pay
Germany: 14 weeks at 100% pay
India: 26 weeks at 100% pay
France: 16 weeks at 90% pay
Sweden: 12.9 weeks at 77% pay
Italy: 21.7 weeks at 80% pay
Mexico: 12 weeks at 100% pay
Norway: 13 weeks at 94% pay
Australia: 18 weeks at 42% pay

I was taken aback at Kemi making an issue of this during her leadership contest, especially given her PR as a pro-woman spokesperson and the risk that this would be twisted/used by SM. I think it’s such a complex issue and needs a govt consultation with SMEs and women’s groups to come up with workable (humane) solutions.
Edited to remove link!

Yes. The interviewer interrupted her while she was answering one point and KB continued to answer.

It's highly dishonest framing.

Kemi is going to be very susceptible to that type of framing - because she says it as she sees it - without much in the way of filters. Other politicians are more canny and manipulative with what they say.