Kemi Badenoch: You’re higher off on welfare than in work underneath Labour

People are better off on welfare than in work under Labour, Kemi Badenoch said yesterday.

The Tory leader warned that Keir Starmer was creating a climate where being on benefits was preferable to having a job – unless you happened to work for government itself.

She said those working in the public sector, or for organisations taxing firms, were better off than those running them.

In a speech following Rachel Reeves‘s intervention on the economy yesterday, Mrs Badenoch said: ‘Risk aversion is killing us. The price of avoiding all failure is that we are losing all chance of success. 

‘This is the culture that Labour is creating: that you’re better off spending your money than saving it.

‘You’re better off on welfare than in work… If you do work, you’re better off working for the Government or the organisation taxing the business rather than the business itself.’

Kemi Badenoch has attacked Labour’s lack of a plan to get Britain working ahead of Rachel Reeves’s next Budget

She accused Labour of having no plan to get Britain working and of abandoning any attempt to live within its means. 

‘This, she said, was not a matter of pursuing austerity but of respecting taxpayers.

And after the Chancellor signalled she would put up taxes, Mrs Badenoch made the case for cutting them. 

‘When you tax something, you get less of it,’ she said. ‘We need lower taxes on taking a risk, on buying a home, on having a family.’

Setting out her vision of a ‘fair society’, she added: ‘I believe that rewards should match effort. If you go to work to provide for yourself and your family, you should be better off than someone who doesn’t.’