G7 Summit

Kemi Badenoch Excerpts

Monday 22nd June 2026 Commons Chamber

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

I thank the Deputy Prime Minister for advance sight of his statement. He is right when he says that everyone in this House owes a debt to the Prime Minister, but it is most certainly not a debt of gratitude; it is the other type of debt that we owe.

The right hon. Gentleman has come to the House to update us on a meeting that he did not attend. He stood in for the Prime Minister at Prime Minister’s questions during the G7; now he is standing in again to tell us what happened at the G7. Where is the Prime Minister? He says he needs to stay in post for three months, but then does not come to Parliament to do his job. He wants to go on a farewell tour, while the new right hon. Member for Makerfield (Andy Burnham) is asking for a summer holiday to work out what he thinks. In the meantime, no one is in charge, and Britain is not being governed.

The Prime Minister gave assurances at the G7 about military support to Ukraine. He gave those assurances after the Defence Secretary resigned because he was being forced to make decisions that would increase the risk to our armed forces. The Prime Minister gave assurances about sanctions on Russian oil and gas while, in this House, the Government were lifting those sanctions. The Prime Minister is saying one thing abroad but doing the opposite at home. Those are just some of the many reasons that he had to resign this morning, but apparently, for some mysterious reason, he must stick around until September. Given that he has resigned, why is he hanging around? The Deputy Prime Minister had to change his statement so that we all knew that the EU reset summit had been postponed. The summit is not happening any more, so what is the Prime Minister hanging around for? Why are we sending a non-Prime Minister to the most important NATO summit in a generation? It is because this psychodrama is about the Labour party, not the country.

Labour is still trying to tell us that everything is fine. That is what the Deputy Prime Minister was saying: “Everything is fine.” He has given us a statement about a G7 summit that he did not go to. The few Labour MPs who bothered to turn up to the Chamber were nodding along, pretending to be listening intently, but in a few minutes, they will all scurry back to their offices and focus on their real priority: lobbying for a job in the next Government. I take the opportunity to congratulate the right hon. Member for Makerfield on his election, but I point out that my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen South (Douglas Lumsden) is here; the right hon. Gentleman is not, because he is more interested in his leadership bid than Britain’s national security.

Two weeks ago, the Defence Secretary and the Armed Forces Minister quit the Government because Labour’s failure to fund defence is putting our national security at risk. That issue will not disappear from the right hon. Member for Makerfield’s in-tray just because he won a by-election. If he becomes Prime Minister, he will be briefed by the heads of our military about Britain’s reducing ability to defend herself, let alone Ukraine, which the Deputy Prime Minister mentioned. In order to fund defence, we need more money, not more speeches at summits. The right hon. Member for Makerfield will find that Britain is not able to borrow any more money, and that it has all been spent on welfare. He will realise that this Government are providing export finance to rebuild Ukraine’s energy system, while crippling our own, and are reducing sanctions on Russian oil, while sanctioning oil from Aberdeen.

Only one thing matters at the G7 and NATO summits, and that is our collective national security. [Interruption.] A Minister is chuntering. Can he say anything about why the Defence Secretary resigned? If Ministers are all living in la-la land, I am going to wake them up. They need to stop pretending that everything is fine, because it is not. Let me remind the Deputy Prime Minister that the Prime Minister is resigning because he failed on national security. He appointed a known security risk as our ambassador to Washington. He is destroying our energy security, which is national security, and he is refusing to fund the defence investment plan needed to keep our country safe.

The G7 summit reminds us that we are living in serious times, yet the Government are paralysed and our country is in limbo. It is time for Labour to start putting country before party, and to put Britain’s national interest first.

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

This is the first occasion that I have been opposite the Leader of the Opposition. We are actually friends, behind all of this. I thank her for her generosity and for her constructive suggestions on this occasion; it is always good to know that I can count on her support.

I remind the House that this is the same Leader of the Opposition who suggested that we should empty-chair the G20 and not bother turning up to the NATO summit. She wanted to jump into war with Iran without thinking through the consequences. I am proud to serve a Prime Minister whose hard work has made this country stronger and much fairer than the Britain we inherited from the Conservatives.

The Leader of the Opposition knows that the Prime Minister has rebuilt Britain’s international alliances. She cannot deny the five major trade deals struck under our watch—something that she failed to do. She knows that we have led the coalition of the willing in backing Ukraine, have renewed our partnership with Europe, and are delivering the biggest boost to defence spending since the cold war. I am proud of all that. She asks about defence. The work continues to finalise the defence investment plan. We are already investing £270 billion in defence over this Parliament, and the defence investment plan will deliver another unprecedented increase in defence spending. When it is published shortly, we will set out how every Department is contributing to defence.

The Leader of the Opposition talks about oil and gas; they will be part of our energy mix for many years to come. We are delivering enough clean energy products to power 23 million homes, led by Great British Energy—headquartered, of course, in Aberdeen. The PM secured £9 billion-worth of Japanese investment in offshore wind last weekend; of course, the Leader of the Opposition would rip all that up. She talks about Russian oil, but the Conservatives are wrong there: all sanctions on Russian oil remain in place, and we are imposing new sanctions that were resisted under the Conservatives.

I look forward to another opportunity to sit across from the Leader of the Opposition in the months ahead.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kemi Badenoch Excerpts

Tuesday 13th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Frazer]

I would be very happy to meet the hon. Gentleman. I am very pleased that he took part in the scheme and that it is excellent. I encourage all other Members to take part in it, too.

[Mrs Kemi Badenoch (Saffron Walden) (Con)]

Will the Minister provide further detail on how the planned reforms will enable judges to be deployed more effectively?

[Lucy Frazer]

As my hon. Friend has highlighted, a very effective and efficient measure is in the process of going through Parliament and it will enable judges to be deployed very effectively, to sit in other jurisdictions and to be used in the best possible way.

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[Mr Speaker]

I will call a colleague who promises to ask a short, one-sentence question. If it is a long question, do not bother. Kemi Badenoch.

[Mrs Kemi Badenoch (Saffron Walden) (Con)]

Will the Minister update the House on the progress of the refurbishment of the prisons estate?

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Rory Stewart)]

As the Secretary of State has pointed out, £58 million more has come in the Budget. In individual prisons, we have now invested more than £16 million, which has been spent particularly on replacing windows and refurbishing cells. In Wormwood Scrubs, for example, as I have seen, the whole of the fourth landing on Delta wing has been refurbished. That is good progress, but there is more to do.

Civil Liability Bill [Lords]

Kemi Badenoch Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 23rd October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

I agree with my hon. Friend. He is right that the insurance companies have in the past—I stress in the past—had a questionable record on some of these issues, but I repeat what I said on Second Reading: it is entirely unhelpful to bash the insurance industry or denounce it as a bunch of shysters who are ripping the public off. As I said in that debate, the insurance industry is one of our world-leading industries. We should celebrate it and be grateful for it: our insurance industry is a world-beating industry. There are not that many industries left in Britain that we can call truly world class, but the insurance industry happens to be one that is. It was nauseating and disconcerting on Second Reading—it has not happened so much today—to hear speaker after speaker on the Opposition Benches denouncing the insurance industry. They were scandalised that, God forbid, the industry should make profits, as though making a profit were in itself a moral crime. We have to try to shift the nature of the debate. The insurance industry is a world-beating industry. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill) has suggested, we need to have some oversight to ensure that savings are passed through to the customers, our constituents.

[Mrs Kemi Badenoch (Saffron Walden) (Con)]

Is my hon. Friend aware that, according to statistics from the ABI, the myth about profit-making by insurance companies is a little bit overstated, and that motor insurers are actually not making a profit? The figures are being conflated with those of other parts of the insurance industry.

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. As any student of basic economics will know, in a highly competitive industry the ability to make extraordinary profits is severely reduced. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of insurers in our highly developed, highly sophisticated market. As I have said, we are a world beater in this area, and that means that we have lots of diversity in the insurance market. Lots of insurers are going bust, but many are making money because they are well managed. That is exactly what we would expect in a competitive industry that has reached a high degree of maturity, as the insurance industry has in this country.

Going back to the provisions in the Bill, I believe that the Government are trying to do a very measured and reasonable thing. We are trying to limit the fraud—or the escalation of whiplash claims to the point that they drive up pricing in insurance. We are also saying that we will engage with the courts, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst suggested. There is a role for the judiciary to play in this debate and in the management and setting of tariffs. Also, I would expect Opposition Members to be more enthusiastic about the fact that there is a role for the Government and the Lord Chancellor in ensuring that insurance premiums do not become excessive. There is absolutely a role for political engagement in the ability to cap a tariff, to ensure that premiums are low. This makes for a very reasonable and equitable set of demands, which is to be welcomed, and I hope that the Bill proceeds on its serene course through our Parliament.

--- Later in debate ---

In short, the Bill is about the system being fair and about public confidence in the system being fair—it is not currently obvious that the system is fair, I am afraid. The Bill will mean reduced costs for insurance customers, who currently pay the costs of unfounded claims, and rebalance the system for the emergent compensation culture that has seen unreasonable and exaggerated claims grow significantly in recent years. Most people want an insurance system that has a fair and just balance between claims and premiums. Hard-pressed motorists and taxpayers in my constituency will gain from the Bill, much more so than any insurance company, and I am happy to support it tonight.

[Mrs Badenoch]

I rise to speak in support of the Bill and to oppose amendment 2. First, however, I will remind the House why we need the Bill; we have heard it over and over again in the debate. I know that other Members have had similar experiences of nuisance calls from ambulance-chasing companies, and many of my constituents certainly have. As of this week, I am still receiving calls from companies telling me that they had heard I had been in a car accident that was not my fault—this must have been the 10th time that I received such a call this year. Needless to say, I have not been involved in any car accident then or since.

However, this debate is not about nuisance calls, but about the incentives behind them, which are to encourage unnecessary and, in many cases, fraudulent insurance claims that are difficult, if not impossible, to prove. If we remove the incentive for claims companies to act in this way, we will get rid of the ones encouraging fraud and probably the nuisance calls as well. So many would welcome this. Because of the actions of these companies, insurance premiums for honest, safe and sensible drivers reached a record high of £493 at the end of 2017. As other Members have mentioned, young drivers in particular already pay over double the average premium.

For so many of us, motor insurance premiums are one of the highest bills we pay. The Government have repeatedly expressed that their mission is to get a country that works for everyone, and reducing costs for the “just about managing” is one way to do that. It has also been said several times in the debate that these measures, alongside the secondary legislation, will reduce the cost of motor insurance premiums on average by around £35 a year. I know that many of my constituents would appreciate much lower motor insurance premiums.

I also echo the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman) about the strain on public services. At present, with a discount rate of minus 0.75%, the NHS is overpaying on claims for clinical negligence, which is adding to pressure on the public purse. In 2017-18, around £400 million in additional funds had to be provided to the NHS as a consequence of the change in the discount rate. In 2016-17, the NHS spent £1.7 billion on clinical negligence cases. The annual cost has almost doubled since 2010, with an average 13.5% increase every year. Like everyone in this House, I am looking forward to the end of austerity, and perhaps this Bill can help us to get there.

[Huw Merriman]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. She brought up the discount rate and I could not resist the temptation to intervene. I absolutely welcome changes to the discount rate, but would she like to see a future in which, rather than one lump sum being paid out for compensation for the rest of someone’s life, we look more at doing this on an annual basis? That may make the overall costs more reasonable and make it less likely that investments will go wrong.

[Mrs Badenoch]

I thank my hon. Friend for making that very good point. This argument was made during the Justice Committee’s evidence sessions, and I am in two minds about it. There are good reasons to have both. An annual payment can help to reduce strain in the long term, but for some people, the constant payments would be a reminder of a particularly traumatic accident. Perhaps we need a flexible system that can accommodate both, depending on a claimant’s particular circumstances, but I thank him for raising that point.

I do not believe we need amendment 2. The purpose of the tariff as set out in clause 3 is to simplify the process for those who have been injured while ensuring they receive compensation that is proportionate. Not only that, but claimants will continue to receive special damages for any financial losses they suffer as a result. Similar systems are in use in countries such as Italy and Spain, which have already seen positive impacts on both the number of claims and the cost of premiums.

The Opposition are concerned that the tariff cannot be varied according to individual circumstances, but this is not the case. As my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Mr Clarke) has already noted, the tariff is staggered to account for the duration of the injury, whether that be between four and six months or, at the highest end of the spectrum, 19 and 24 months. Furthermore, clause 5 allows judges the discretion to make awards above the tariff level when the individual circumstances merit it. Amendment 2 seeks to remove this clause, as well as clause 4, under which the Lord Chancellor can regularly review the tariff. That would not be right.

The Government have noted that about 650,000 road traffic accident personal injury claims were made in 2017-18. An estimated 85% of those claims were for whiplash-related injuries. That is over 550,000 whiplash claims. As many Members have said, however, there has simultaneously been a reduction in the number of road traffic accidents reported to the police, while improvements continue to be made in vehicle safety. This is leading to increasing premiums for my constituents, and that cannot be right.

It seems to me, from listening to this debate, that Parliament is caught in a technical argument between the insurance lobbyists and the legal services lobbyists. I speak here on behalf on my constituents. I am keen to hear from the Minister how the Government can ensure that cost savings reach the consumer and are not negated by future policy proposals. Having said that, the Bill is an opportunity for the Government to bring down premiums and let people keep more of their own money in their pockets. That is a principled and Conservative ideal. Removing clauses 3, 4 and 5 would go against all efforts to help them and the taxpayer.

[Huw Merriman]

Would my hon. Friend also recognise that we have a good track record on this? A few years ago, when the Government made changes to the civil litigation procedure, an average of £50 was knocked off insurance premiums as a result.

[Mrs Badenoch]

I thank my hon. Friend for making that point. It is something I would have liked to say earlier, and I am glad he was able to make it for me.

In conclusion, the Bill fulfils a manifesto commitment by my party and should make it easier for genuine whiplash claimants. I will be supporting it tonight, but not, I am afraid, Opposition amendment 2.

[Mary Robinson (Cheadle) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Saffron Walden (Mrs Badenoch). As we have heard, the Bill makes important changes to our personal injury compensation system, and although I broadly support its aims and measures, I would like to put on the record a few of my concerns and those raised with me by lawyers and constituents.

The Bill is long overdue. The last increase to the small claims limit was made in 1991. As we have heard, data from the Department for Work and Pensions reveal that about 650,000 road traffic accident-related personal injury claims were made in 2017-18 and that about 85% of these were for whiplash-related injuries—a higher rate than in any other European country. Department for Transport figures, however, show that from 2007 to 2017 reported RTAs fell by 30%.

Clause 3 introduces a tariff for compensation in whiplash claims. Lawyers who have contacted me and met to discuss this have supported the arguments made by the Access to Justice Foundation, which has estimated that the proposed new tariff would deny 600,000 people injured on our roads each year the right to legal advice when seeking compensation.

The question I have asked is: how does this value equality and fairness in comparing types of injury under the compensation regime? For instance, under the proposed tariff, if I experienced an injury in a road traffic accident that lasted up to three months—as I have in the past—I would receive £235 in compensation. Compensation varies across many sectors. If my train journey from London to Stockport, a route on which I travel every week, were delayed by two hours, I could receive up to £338. Under these proposals, the same injury would attract less compensation simply because it was sustained in a road traffic accident rather than in another way.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kemi Badenoch Excerpts

Tuesday 5th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gyimah]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The consequence of illicit items in prisons is violence and instability for the regime, and the way to counter that technological threat is through technology. The private Member’s Bill promoted by my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes, which the Government are backing, would give us more power to switch off mobile phones in prisons and therefore deal with the scourge that they present.

[Mrs Kemi Badenoch (Saffron Walden) (Con)]

12. What progress he has made on improving safety for prison officers.

[The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Mr David Lidington)]

In addition to strengthening the frontline by boosting prison officer numbers, we are using intelligence-led searches and joint operations with law enforcement agencies to disrupt the supply of drugs, phones and other illicit items that drive violence in prisons. We have invested in 5,600 body-worn cameras to help to protect prison staff, and we are working with the police and the Crown Prosecution Service to prosecute prisoners who assault officers.

[Mrs Badenoch]

On a visit to Rochester prison last Thursday, I heard that perceptions of prison officer safety were affecting recruitment. Can the Secretary of State tell us what the Department is doing to support the recruitment of prison officers?

[Mr Lidington]

We are meeting with considerable success in filling the 2,500 additional prison officer places that my predecessor, the right hon. Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss), successfully negotiated a year ago. We are also developing a graduate entry scheme for prison officers, and working with the armed forces to ensure that the service leavers scheme takes proper account of the opportunities in the prison service.

Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Bill

Kemi Badenoch Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 20th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Kemi Badenoch (Saffron Walden) (Con)]

I welcome this Bill and I am very happy to support the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) on this cross-party issue.

The nature of crime is changing. It is becoming more violent and more aggressive. Even as we see crime numbers fall, add the threat of terrorism, coupled with the sheer number of incidents involving mental health issues, and I can understand why police officers in my constituency feel besieged. My constituency is large, at about 400 square miles. That adds challenges, not just because of the size and scale of policing in our community, but because of the sense of isolation. Thirteen officers in Essex are assaulted every week. There were 666 reported cases between April 2016 and March 2017, but the real figure is far higher, because many cases go unreported. Police officers in my constituency tell me that they are scared and do not feel that the public understand or even care. This Bill sends a message that we do.

Earlier this month, officers in Saffron Walden responded to calls of road workers being threatened with a weapon. They pursued the suspect through difficult terrain. The man, heavily under the influence of drink and drugs, was eventually stopped, only to attack officers with a hammer. Officers present sustained injuries and, if not for their training and professionalism, could have been fatally injured. I am incredibly proud of Chief Inspector Carrington’s team, who put their own wellbeing at risk to keep us all safe.

I am also pleased with the Bill’s provisions for collecting samples from those offenders who spit at our emergency service workers. Spitting is a repulsive act and, when I was a London Assembly member, I worked extensively with the Met police on addressing the issue. I heard story after story of people who were worried about their health, not knowing what would happen as they waited for scary test results. Authorities that wish to use spit guards to protect their officers should be allowed to do so.

Emergency service workers are our first and last resort. These men and women dedicate their lives to us. They run towards danger as we run away. Police officers, in particular, are not typical employees. They accept no employment rights, which means they cannot go on strike. They have to rely on this place to ensure that they are provided with the support they deserve, which is why I support the Bill.