Oral Answers to Questions

Kemi Badenoch Excerpts

Wednesday 11th November 2026 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Kemi Badenoch (North West Essex) (Con)]

On this Armistice Day, we remember the courage and sacrifice of those who served our country and those who gave their lives for us. We owe them and their families an enduring debt of gratitude.

The Prime Minister entered Downing Street promising a 10-year plan to reverse 40 years of neoliberalism. Is it really true that he has so little vision for this country that he needs the Boston Consulting Group to write it for him?

[The Prime Minister]

I did walk into Downing Street promising a 10-year plan for this country, because I am determined to give this country the stability that the Conservatives failed to provide, and I am determined to give the leadership that this country needs. I can say to the right hon. Lady that we will present our plan for Britain to this House before it rises for the Christmas recess.

[Mrs Badenoch]

I am not surprised that the Prime Minister has asked management consultants to help him write his 10-year plan—he needs all the help he can get. We have heard one thing that will be in it: he is merging the DVLA with the DVSA. [Hon. Members: “Ooh!”] Exciting stuff, Mr Speaker. It is no wonder that Labour MPs are already telling The Guardian that it is a “tragic joke”. This Government are adrift. Two weeks ago we had a “do nothing” Budget. It pushed all the big decisions, like funding our defence, into the spending review, but we have no idea when that will be. He has talked about the 10-year plan. Can he assure the House that the spending review will come before next summer?

[The Prime Minister]

The right hon. Lady mentions the Budget—the most popular Budget for a number of years, I have to say—which helped people with the cost of living crisis. Can she explain why the Conservatives voted against a bank levy that will deliver a council tax cut for 20 million households in January? It was a big decision to oppose that, and she needs to explain why she took that decision.

There will be a proposal for a national care service in the 10-year plan. The covid inquiry recently said that social care was an “afterthought” for the Conservative party. We will also present the Milburn report to this House next week. We will put forward a plan to this House and the country for a safe and sustainable way to bring the welfare bill down and get young people into work.

[Mrs Badenoch]

I think it was popular compared to the former Chancellor’s Budget. I asked the Prime Minister to confirm when the spending review will be, and we did not get an answer. All the waffle he gave us there was kicking everything into the long grass. Meanwhile, the Iranians are threatening our bases today, but he cannot tell us when his Government will properly fund our defence. But he has so much time on his hands that last night he attended a speech by the head of the civil service. He is supposed to be telling her his plan, not sitting in the audience while she tells him hers.

There was one worthwhile thing in the Budget: the Rosebank oilfield. The Chancellor has already banked the tax revenue, but there is just one problem: Rosebank has not been approved. If it is not going to be approved, why was it in the Budget?

[The Prime Minister]

The right hon. Lady knows that the Rosebank decision is a quasi-legal decision and it will be taken in due course. She stood at the Dispatch Box a moment ago and said that this Government are not taking big decisions. We did approve the Jackdaw gasfield. Today £12 billion is going into renewable energy. These are big decisions. Yesterday she put forward what she considers a big decision: £36 billion of cuts. Does she accept that so many of the people affected by what she announced are working people—people whose incomes will be hit hard in a cost of living crisis? I think the right hon. Lady needs to answer why she would make the cost of living crisis harder for people through the cuts she has just announced?

[Mrs Badenoch]

I asked the Prime Minister about Rosebank. He says that it is a quasi-judicial decision. It is a political decision. Why else did it take the Labour Government two years to approve Jackdaw while the Foreign Secretary was in charge, but now he is gone it happened just like that? This is the real reason they did not do it: the Foreign Secretary instructed Government lawyers not to fight the court case. He called Rosebank “climate vandalism”—but then he also thought that cosying up to Russell Brand would make him Prime Minister, so I do not think we need to trust his judgment. [Interruption.] Labour Members are saying “Shame”—they are right, the Foreign Secretary should be ashamed. Meanwhile, the Chancellor is already banking the tax revenue from Rosebank in his calculations. Why will the Prime Minister not just approve Rosebank?

[The Prime Minister]

Correct me if I am wrong, but the Jackdaw decision that the last Government tried to take was struck down, because they made it overtly political—that was why they could not take that decision. The right hon. Lady comes to the House handing out lectures week after week, but maybe she needs to look a little closer to home as to why the last Government failed to take that decision. We will take a further decision on Rosebank in due course, as well as building a renewable energy future, which is what we are also announcing today. We are facing the big issues and we will lay that out in the 10-year plan. This country was going backwards under the Conservative party. We are leading it forward. We are bringing people back together. We are giving people hope. She is voting against the help that we just announced in the Budget. When will she directly address the cost of living crisis in this House?

[Mrs Badenoch]

I ask the questions here and I am asking about Rosebank—it was literally in the Budget. The reason why the Prime Minister will not approve it is because Government Members are all squabbling, or maybe he does not want it hanging over his head at COP. It is not just the Foreign Secretary, because 50 of his MPs do not want it either, led by the current Energy Secretary, and she is only in the job because the Culture Secretary turned it down.

Today the Government are in court defending our right to drill oil and gas off the Falklands. At the same time, they are passing legislation to ban drilling off Scotland. This is ludicrous. Why is it acceptable to drill oil and gas in the Falklands but not in the North sea?

[The Prime Minister]

The right hon. Lady has not been paying attention. We recently approved the Jackdaw gasfield in the North sea—something that she failed to do when she was in government—and through the energy wealth fund created by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor, we are using the proceeds to accelerate the delivery of renewables. Today we are announcing two offshore wind projects—off the coast of East Anglia and off the east coast of Scotland—in part funded by the National Wealth Fund.

If the right hon. Lady wants to address energy policy, perhaps we can talk about why energy bills went up and up under the Conservatives. Perhaps we can discuss how they lost public control, lost control of people’s bills and left people paying more and more. We are removing standing charges from gas bills, which will bring people’s bills down, and we are going to do the same by looking at reforming standing charges on electricity bills. We have taken VAT off electricity bills. Also, through all those efforts, we will speed up the delinking of gas and electricity prices, getting bills down over the long term. That is an energy policy, and the Conservative party could have done with one when they were in office.

[Mrs Badenoch]

There was a lot of waffle there, but I did not hear why it is all right to allow oil and gas drilling in the Falklands but not in the North sea. The Prime Minister sounds confused: he did not seem to know that he is legislating to ban oil and gas drilling. The Government are totally adrift—they need consultants to tell them what to think and civil servants to tell them what to do—so we are left with a “do nothing” Budget, a spending review delayed and a 10-year plan outsourced. Meanwhile, the whole country is in limbo. Labour MPs want to pretend that Keir Starmer simply walked off into the sunset, but in reality this man knifed him in the back and now does not know what to do. Is not the truth that they are all sat there shaking their heads, wondering whether it was all worth it?

[The Prime Minister]

I have told the right hon. Lady today what I am doing. Whether she was listening or not, people at home will have heard that I am bringing forward a national care service, when the Conservatives ignored social care for years and years. I am acting to get people’s energy bills down, when the Conservatives did not. I listen to her talking at the Dispatch Box as though they got everything right. A quarter of a million young people became NEETs—not in education, employment or training—between 2021 and 2024, when she was in the Cabinet. The welfare bill rose by £33 billion in her last year in office, when she was in the Cabinet. When will she come to this House with real proposals to address those things, rather than repeating more of the same? Next month, she will see our plan for Britain presented to this House. It will lay a new path for this country to go forward, breaking with the failed policies of the Conservative party. She is going to have to come up with better than that if she is going to take on what we are putting forward.