Statutory maternity pay is 'excessive', says Tory leadership candidate Kemi Badenoch

Maternity pay is "excessive" and people should exercise "more personal responsibility", Kemi Badenoch has said. In an interview with Times Radio, the Conservative leadership contender and shadow communities secretary appeared to criticise statutory maternity pay as she said the Government was doing "too much".

Describing statutory maternity pay as "a function of tax", she said: "Tax comes from people who are working, we're taking from one group of people and giving to another. This, in my view, is excessive."

Arguing that businesses were closing because "the burden of regulation is too high", she added: "We need to allow businesses, especially small businesses, to make more of their own decisions."

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"The exact amount of maternity pay, in my view, is neither here nor there. We need to make sure that we are creating an environment where people can work and people can have more freedom to make their individual decisions."

When it was put to her that the amount of maternity pay was important for people who could not otherwise afford to have a baby, Ms Badenoch said: "We need to have more personal responsibility."

"There was a time when there wasn't any maternity pay and people were having more babies."

First introduced in 1987, statutory maternity pay is available only to women who are employed and earning an average of at least £123 per week.

It provides 90% of a person's salary for six weeks, and then whichever is lower of 90% of their salary or £184.03 per week for the next 33 weeks, and the payment is liable for income tax and national insurance.

Ms Badenoch has pitched her leadership campaign as a call for the state to do less, arguing that the Government should focus on what it does well such as "defence and domestic security", and opposed policies such as the football regulator or the proposed widening of the smoking ban.