Tories vs maternity pay

This article was published in The Oxford Student as part of my 'Womansplaining' column on 8 Nov 2024.

With the Tory leadership election concluding just a few days later, all eyes are on the two frontrunners, Kemi Badenoch and Robert Jenrick. The current Shadow Communities Secretary, Badenoch, is the frontrunner and has been projected to become the next Leader of the Opposition. However, she came under fire for her comments on maternity pay being “excessive” and having “gone too far”. A rift in the party then ensued, with many Tory politicians distancing themselves from Badenoch. She has since claimed that her claims were “misrepresented” and that she does “believe in maternity pay”. 

Closer scrutiny reveals that she had not been misrepresented at all. In an interview with Times Radio, she was asked if maternity pay was at the right level. She replied, “Maternity pay varies, depending on who you work for. But statutory maternity pay is a function of tax, 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.”

She further said, “Businesses are closing, businesses are not starting in the UK, because they say that the burden of regulation is too high.”

When challenged on how the current level of maternity pay was necessary for those who could not afford to have a baby without it, Badenoch replied, “We need to have more personal responsibility. There was a time when there wasn’t any maternity pay and people were having more babies.”

Let’s dissect Badenoch’s comments here one by one. Yes, of course there was a time without maternity pay when women had seven or eight children. Perhaps this was before women were encouraged or allowed to have careers of their own and merely treated as breeding cattle. Or perhaps this was during the blissful time when one breadwinner was able to support a household, before the stagnation of middle-class real wages and the cost of living crisis. For someone who claims to be making an economic argument about taxes and competitiveness, she is either laughably ignorant about the economic realities of having children, or simply living in privileged denial. 

If this wasn’t bad enough, Badenoch’s argument about excessive taxation is inconsistent with her argument about the uncompetitive business environment. Either, maternity pay is “tax” because businesses claim it from the government, in which case businesses do not have to suffer the undue burden of paying their employees; or, businesses have to bear the brunt of maternity pay, in which case the money is not shouldered by taxpayers. She cannot have her cake and eat it too. 

The most ridiculous thing is that the Tories claim to be on the side of the family unit. Tory MP Miriam Cates said that low birthrate was the UK’s top priority and argued that “cultural Marxism” and excessive education were contributing to the existential threat. Even though she was criticised for her extreme comments, the family unit has always been emphasised as an important part of Conservative policy. Implicitly arguing for cuts to maternity pay is all the more puzzling in such a context. 

Badenoch did face significant backlash for her comments. However, not only did she not suffer electorally, but she actually came out on top in the MP’s ballots for the Tory leadership election afterwards. When one of the most prominent women in British politics is directly attacking the rights and abilities of other women to have children and getting rewarded for it, something has gone seriously awry. 

The other side of the political divide isn’t doing too well either. In one of the first votes after the Labour Party came into power in the summer, Prime Minister Keir Starmer suspended seven rebel MPs who voted to scrap the two-child benefit cap. This was seen as a surprisingly harsh punishment for not toeing the party line. Chancellor Rachel Reeves has also refused to commit to lifting the two-child cap, even as LSE’s research shows that it plunges increasing numbers of children into poverty, and charity Save The Children argues that scrapping the policy can immediately lift half a million children out of poverty. 

Right now, it seems like neither party is on the side of women, children, or families. Regardless of how the Tory leadership election turns out, Badenoch’s comments have shown that having a woman in power does not necessarily advance women’s rights or interests. It is disheartening that we still have to fight for the most basic provisions like unconditional child benefits and adequate maternity pay.