Kemi Badenoch hit back at Laura Kuenssberg this morning over the Labour Budget – less than 24 hours after she was announced as the new Tory leader.
Ms Badenoch first reflected on the failings of the Conservatives before saying she would rather talk about her future plans for the party.
Following this, she went on to discuss Labour’s recent Budget announcement, saying: “If you tell the public that you’re going to spend this and spend that and everything is going to be fine, of course, people will vote for it.
“So what I talk about is the page two, so Rachel Reeves has been on here and says we will invest more in the NHS, more in public services, everybody wants that, we’re all happy with that.
“But page two is, well we’re actually going to be in more debt and there’s going to be less money around for the next generation and actually a lot of businesses are going to leave or not even start up in the first place.”
Ms Kuenssberg asked Badenoch if she would reverse the increase in employer National Insurance, money raised from this will go into the NHS under new Labour plans.
Badenoch said: “I don’t accept the premise of that question. We didn’t do those things in order to increase the funding for the NHS so it’s not a binary suggestion that if you don’t do this then that means there’s less money for the NHS.
“What I will say is look at what the OBR stated about the Budget. That there’s no £22billion black hole, so that’s dishonest, that most of the employer increases are going to be passed over in lower wages and higher prices – that’s not good for people.”
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