Kemi Badenoch’s maternity pay comments show how ‘hopelessly out of touch’ Tories are, TUC says – UK politics live | Politics

Labour has also put out a statement attacking Kemi Badenoch for her comments about maternity pay. Ellie Reeves, the Labour party chair, said:

It is symptomatic of the Conservative party as a whole that this is the kind of intervention that one of their leadership contenders is coming out with. The Tories and their continuity candidates are completely unserious about the problems they inflicted on the country over 14 years of chaos and decline.

Rishi Sunak is not scheduled to give a speech during the main conference proceedings, even though he is still party leader. But he is hosting what is described as a thank-you reception for party members at 5pm, and we are told he will be giving a speech at that event, at about 5.20pm. It will be his main contribution at the conference.

Richard Fuller, the Conservative chair, told the conference in his speech that he has ordered a review of what happened at the election that will be more comprehensive than previous ones. He said it would give party members more say over policy making and candidate selection

Describing how it would operate, he said:

The review will be empowered to make recommendations for reform in all aspects of our party and will then oversee the implementation of those recommendations with real accountability on the party leadership to deliver.

The review must equip the party to fight and win elections at all levels.

It must modernise our campaigning.

It must provide the training needed to upskill our activists.

It must expand the voice of members in policy making.

It must enhance the rights of local party members in the candidate selection process.

And much, much more.

In short, the review must revitalise our party and get it back to being the election winning machine it once was.

The review will be chaired by Patrick McLoughlin, a former transport secretary, chief whip and party chair, and outgoing chair of the National Convention, Lord Booth. It will present initial findings on 2 November, when the new leader is being announced.

In a news release, the party said the main themes of the review would be:

1) To determine the reasons for the Conservative party’s long-term performance in all nations and regions.

2) To assess how the party performed against different opposition parties, and how that should inform our future strategies.

3) To analyse how various elements of the campaign strategy (e.g. voter targeting, digital, volunteer engagement, communications/messaging) performed in practice and compared to the underlying plan.

4) To assess the role of the parliamentary party since 2010, and its impact on elections.

5) To assess the motivation, strength and organisation of volunteers and members in the 2024 election.

6) Review the process of composing the manifesto and the impact of policies in the campaign.

7) To make recommendations for change and improvement in every area of the party – the parliamentary party and other elected representatives, the voluntary party, and the professional organisation (including CCHQ).

As the Telegraph reports, Tom Tugendhat delivered a jibe at Sue Gray, Keir Starmer’s chief of staff, when speaking at a fringe meeting. He said:

To be fair to Sue, she’s demonstrated that she really is an impartial civil servant.

I mean, she, after all, brought down one prime minister who was a Conservative, and now she’s working on bringing down another one who happens to be Labour.

I think she’s demonstrating the kind of political balance that we expect for the civil service, destroying political careers, wherever they may be found.

Helena Horton

Conservative MPs feel aggrieved that voters did not acknowledge their progress on achieving good water quality during the last election.

Rebecca Smith, the new MP for South West Devon, said her constituents expect rivers and the sea “to be like a swimming pool at times” adding: “You’ve got a whole load of consumers who want to swim but don’t know how bad things were 20 years ago.”

And the shadow environment minister Robbie Moore said he thinks people are angry about sewage pollution because the environment agency gives out too much data on sewage pollution. He explained:

The real challenge has been because there has been so much campaigning on this particular issue that any risk that is highlighted through increased monitoring is deemed by everybody to immediately be a pollution incident, and it absolutely isn’t in most cases, actually.

And therefore I think that comes down to making sure that there is a clarity on what data is being presented, and what is being put into the public domain, by not only the water company, but how regulators, particularly the Environment Agency, are presenting that data. That was something I was trying to raise with the Environment Agency when I was in the department.

Moore also criticised the Labour government over the news, first broken by the Guardian, that ministers plan to cut the farming budget, which pays for cleaning up water, by about £100m a year. He said:

The farming budget is incredibly important, and the rumours of the farming budget being reduced by £100m per annum will have huge negative consequences on the amount of subsidy that is able to be put into the improvement measures that we announced previously and were able to put in place as a Conservative government.

Kemi Badenoch’s campaign has claimed her rivals are using “selective quotes” to attack her.

As PA Media reports, a person close to Badenoch’s campaign said that “infighting and internal conflicts helped take our party to an historic defeat” and accused other candidates of seeking to “score political hits”.

The source said:

We need to be better, we need our politics to be better. Kemi obviously supports maternity pay and was making a case for lower regulation – something she always aimed for as business secretary.

For other leadership campaigns to be seeking to use selective quotes from an interview to score political hits, shows they’re still wedded to the old politics and simply aren’t serious about getting back to government.

Paul Nowak, the TUC general secretary, has issued a statement saying Kemi Badenoch’s comments about maternity pay (see 12.21pm) shows how “hopelessly out of touch” the Tories are. He said:

The Conservative party leadership candidates are hopelessly out of touch and seem to be competing with one another to be the most unkind and nasty.

Maternity pay in the UK is lower than in many other economies – forcing too many mums back from leave early.

The Tories don’t appear to have any solutions for this country. All they have left is performative cruelty and division.

Helena Horton

Andrew Bowie, the shadow energy and net zero minister, is backing Badenoch for leader – but he refused to give a view on whether her comments on maternity pay went too far.

Asked about her remarks at a fringe meeting, he said:

I would not like to be drawn on that without knowing exactly what she has said. I would have to look at Kemi’s comments on maternity leave.

This came after Bowie was told what Badenoch had said.

Bowie also said the next Conservative leader should bring back fracking- the controversial issue which helped bring down the Liz Truss government. He said:

I do support fracking. I represent an oil and gas constituency [West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine] that is dependent in its entirety on the oil and gas industry. The experts will tell you that they are already fracking in the North Sea. I know it isn’t currently party policy to frack but I don’t know what Kemi will do on it.

Jenrick says, if he had to prioritise amongst the armed forces, he would prioritise the Royal Navy. He is particularly worried about the state of the nuclear deterrent.

And that’s the end of this fringe.

Q: There was a story about you ordering a reception centre for child asylum seekers to cover up welcoming cartoon murals for children. I was uncomfortable reading that. Is the story true?

Jenrick says most of the people at this centre were 16, 17 or 18, or adults posing as children. He wanted to change the way those centres operated so there is “an element of law enforcement”.

But he says people, especially children, should be treated with care and compassion.

The most compassionate thing to do would be to end the business model that allows people smuggling to carry on, he says.

Q: Can you say anything positive about Kemi Badenoch?

Jenrick says Badenoch is a person friend. There is a strong field of candidates, he says.

He says the party needs to come together. He wants the shadow cabinet to be full of the best people in the party.

Q: The biggest round of applause came when you criticised ex special advisers being parachuted into safe seats. Would you refuse to have these people in your shadow cabinet?

Jenrick says he does not blame the candidates; he blames the system.

He says he wants to get people of real quality to stand as candidates. But he does not want them to feel they are getting “shafted” at the last minute.

He says he would abolish the candidates list – although there would have to be a mechanism to get rid of bad apples. He would leave it to party members.

Jenrick says, if the UK remains in the European convention on human rights, that will consign the country to having terrorists on its streets in the future.

So the choice is leave or remain (in the ECHR). He is for leave, he says.

There’s a very simple choice on that issue, leave or remain.

I believe if you remain, you can consign this country to years, decades, of terrorists on our streets [and] foreign national offenders.

Jenrick is now taking questions from the audience.

Q: Is immigration the issue from the last election?

No, says Jenrick. He says we are in an age of miss migration, and he claims this will be the biggest issue of our lifetimes. The Tories have to have serious answers, he says.

Having a cap on immigration numbers (his policy) would put a “democratic lock” on immigration, he claims.

Colvile asks about Jenrick going running in a “Hamas are terrorists” hoodie. He does not criticise the sentiment, but he suggests that sort of stunt does not make him relatable to ordinary people.

Jenrick jokes that the top should have said Hamas and Hezbollah are terrorists. He says he has run an energetic campaign, and claims that his social media has been seen by more people than other candidates’.

Q: How would you change the Conservative party? It is very bad at recruiting new members.

Jenrick says the party has disrespected its members for too long. It asks them for money, but not for their views. And he says originally the plan was for leadership candidates to give speeches of just 10 minutes this week. He protested, he says. Now it is 20 minutes. But he says that is still not long enough.

And he says in the past the leadership has always parachuted its favourite candidates into safe seats. He promise that won’t happen if he is leader.

This gets the first round of applause so far.

Colvile suggests the Tories should be supporting mean-testing the winter fuel payments. He says rish pensioners do not need the money.

Jenrick disagrees. He says some of those who will lose out are not at all wealthy.

Q: What do you feel about maternity pay, and what Kemi Badenoch said?

Jenrick says he does not agree with Badenoch on this.

I don’t agree with Kemi on this one. I am a father of three young daughters. I want to see them get the support that they need when they enter the workplace.

Our maternity pay is among the lowest in the OECD.

I think the Conservative party should be firmly in the side of parents and working mums who are trying to get on.

The Tories should not be focusing on measures that make life harder for working parents, he says.