‘Is that it?’: Badenoch lays into Healey Budget speech
Kemi Badenoch has poured scorn on Labour’s welfare spending plans as she slammed John Healey’s inaugural Budget speech.
The Conservative leader admonished the Chancellor for failing to cut levels of government spending and said the government was to blame for a fall in growth projections next year from the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR).
“I would have thanked the chancellor for advance sight of his statement but it was so redacted it was like reading it in the dark,” she said. “This government has put welfare first. We are overspent, overborrowed, overtaxed and drowning in an out-of-control welfare system and this is his answer?
“Most people in the country listening to this Budget, will be thinking to themselves: is that it?
“The prime minister came in promising to reverse 40 years of neoliberalism. Instead we got 4p off gherkins.”
Badenoch also criticised Healey for failing to set a clear path to increase defence spending to the three per cent of GDP target that Labour has previously committed to, suggesting that the lack of clarity called into question the integrity of Healey’s decision to resign as defence secretary earlier this year.
In his speech, Healey said he would set out plans to raise defence spending to three per cent of GDP to three per cent by 2030 as a “target date”. He said the government would “look hard” at departmental budgets and “use more innovative financing”, including through public bodies and agreements with allied nations.
Healey’s pledge to ramp up defence comes against a troubling economic backdrop in which Britain is grappling with soaring borrowing costs and slowing growth. The OBR, the independent forecaster whose calculations determine whether Healey has maintained control over public finances, said growth would be lower than previously expected at one per cent next year and then 1.6 per cent in 2028.
The independent body said the Chancellor’s fiscal buffer against the government’s main borrowing rule now stands at £15bn, compared to £23.6bn in March. The deficit is projected to amount to 3.4 per cent of GDP next year, a figure closely watched by traders.
Badenoch said the Tories would cut as much as £70bn from government spending, of which half the savings would come from welfare.
“Next year, Britain will have the highest tax burden in the country’s history,” Badenoch said, adding that cutting taxes “is what really gives people breathing space.”
“Let’s cut spending, cut the deficit, fund defence, cut people’s taxes. That was the Budget the Chancellor should have delivered today.
“That is the Budget the Conservatives would have delivered, and that is going to be the choice at the next election.”