Speeches by Badenoch.

“The Prime Minister has got some brass neck. Has he read the papers this morning? That Bill will achieve nothing. It is a pointless waste of time, and it is absolute proof that he does not have a plan. Let me tell the House what is going to happen: in November, the Chancellor is going to put up our taxes to pay for the …”

“I will start again, Mr Speaker. [Interruption.] Yes, and louder for those at the back: sickness benefits are set to rise to £100 billion because of the Government’s mess. They cannot now reduce that, because after last night’s humiliating U-turn, we know that the Prime Minister cannot control his MPs. They are cheering…”

“I will tell the Prime Minister what we did on welfare. [Interruption.] Why are Labour Members laughing? They do not know. My party delivered the biggest reform of welfare in government. We got record numbers of people into work, including millions of disabled people, and we cut the deficit every year until covid. The f…”

“I do not think the Prime Minister actually watched what happened in the House yesterday—his Bill was completely gutted. There was a U-turn in the middle of the debate, removing clause 5. Where on earth was he? He cannot answer the question because he knows his Bill does not save any money; it is going to cost millions.…”

“First of all, can I take this opportunity to congratulate the hon. Member for Rochdale (Paul Waugh) on being the toady of the week, helping the Prime Minister? [Interruption.]”

“The hon. Gentleman is simply wrong. He needs to get an education and look at the facts.”

“My right hon. Friend is quite right: this is a fiasco, and it is the Chancellor’s fault. She marches Labour Members up and down the hill all the time, and they are the ones who have to face their constituents. We are trying to help to get a welfare system under control and get people into work. My right hon. Friend the…”

“I am not surprised that the hon. Gentleman is baffled, because he is clearly not listening to what I am saying. We had three conditions. We have been very, very clear that we want to see the welfare budget come down. I will make some progress. Even with the changes in this Bill, welfare spending will still be higher by…”

“I will make some progress. Despite the obvious flaws in the Bill, we offered to support benefit changes in the national interest. The hon. Member for Gateshead Central and Whickham (Mark Ferguson) asked a question, and I will answer it very clearly for those who have not been paying attention. We agreed to support the …”

“I definitely will not agree with the hon. Gentleman. He is talking about relative poverty figures. The fact is that the best way to get people out of poverty is to get them into work—something we did again and again and again. The Bill is more incoherent now than it was at the beginning. It does not do the job at all. …”

“The fact that the Government have refused to commit to not raising taxes means it is probably inevitable that they will. However, it is quite clear that Labour MPs will feel emboldened to push for more unaffordable changes to our welfare system, including the two-child benefit cap. Let us be clear: part of the reason w…”

“We would cut unemployment. As I was saying, health and disability benefits are forecast to rise to £100 billion, meaning that one in every four pounds raised in income tax will pay for those benefits. That is not sustainable. Until the pandemic, we in the Conservative party had spent years bringing down the benefits bi…”

“My right hon. Friend makes an excellent point. I have nothing further to add—he said it as well as it could possibly be said. The whole House agrees that the system needs to change in one way or another, but what we have in front of us today is a big mess; it is neither fish nor fowl. Because of the Government’s hasty …”

“We are staring down the barrel of a crisis that no serious Government can ignore. The welfare system no longer works as it should, and what was once a safety net has become a trap. A system designed to protect the most vulnerable is now encouraging dependency, and dragging this country into deeper debt. The welfare sys…”

“The Father of the House is absolutely right. This is something we should all be able to agree on, but the Government are too busy trying to shift the blame instead of solving the problem. Let us talk about solving the problem. We have 28 million working people propping up 28 million people who are not working—the rider…”

“I will remind the right hon. Lady of our inheritance. We took difficult—[Interruption.] I will. I have said it before, and I will say it again: we had 8% unemployment, and we got it down to 4%. Every single time Labour leaves office, it leaves more people unemployed. The welfare system needs continual reform. We took d…”

“I will in a moment. We all know why this is happening: this is a rushed attempt to plug the Chancellor’s fiscal hole. It is driven not by principle, but by panic. The changes were forced through not because they get more people into work, but because someone in 11 Downing Street made a mistake. It is clear that these c…”

“I will give way to the hon. Member for Birmingham Northfield (Laurence Turner) first.”

“Labour Members can shout as much as they like, but we all know the truth. We used to be a strategic player on the global stage, advancing Britain’s interests with confidence, and now we are on the sidelines. Over the last few weeks, historic events unfolded in the middle east, and at every stage Britain has been out of…”

“I thank the Prime Minister for advance sight of his statement. He has evaded Prime Minister’s questions for two weeks, only to come back here to tell us what we already heard on the news. This is a weak statement from a weak Prime Minister, which can be characterised in two words: noises off. In his statement, the Prim…”