EARLIER this week, Kemi Badenoch – a Conservative leadership contender – set off a wave of controversy with her remarks on statutory maternity pay. During an interview with Times Radio, she suggested that maternity pay in the UK had “gone too far”.
Her argument? That regulations like this are stifling businesses, and we should be careful not to place too much of a burden on companies.
Her comments have understandably raised some eyebrows. Currently, statutory maternity pay starts at 90% of your earnings for the first six weeks, then drops to either £184 a week or 90% of your pay – whichever is lower – for the next 33 weeks.
It’s not exactly a fortune, especially when you factor in the high cost of living. But Badenoch believes it’s too much – “excessive” even. She argues that it is regulations like these that are making it harder for businesses to thrive and for the UK economy to grow.
Let’s break this down, because many people, myself included, are struggling to make sense of her point. Maternity pay exists to help parents cover basic living costs during a period when they aren’t working because they’re looking after a newborn.
It’s not about luxury or pampering, it’s about survival during one of the most important and challenging times in a person’s life. Yet, Badenoch seems more concerned with the impact on businesses than on new mothers and their families.
To make matters worse, Badenoch later doubled down on her stance, claiming that she practises what she preaches. During her time at The Spectator magazine, she resigned when she was pregnant because she didn’t think it was fair to ask the company to keep her job open. It was framed as an act of personal responsibility, suggesting that this is how women should handle maternity leave.
But here’s where things get a bit frustrating. Badenoch’s financial situation is not typical of the average UK family. Her husband is an investment banker, providing a significant financial cushion. This gave her the freedom to make a decision to give up her job, but for most women, resigning while pregnant simply isn’t an option. Most families don’t have the luxury of relying on a partner’s high income. They can’t afford to give up their jobs or turn down maternity pay.
So, while Badenoch may feel proud of her decision, it doesn’t reflect the reality for the vast majority of parents in the UK. Her personal experience – which has been lauded as a symbol of personal responsibility – is built on a foundation of privilege. It’s an outlier, not a model that the average family should – or can – seek to follow.
The bigger issue here is that maternity pay in the UK is far from excessive. For many, it’s barely enough to make ends meet – just £184 a week is supposed to cover rent, bills, food, and all the additional costs of raising a child.
If you’re self-employed, things are even worse. Maternity Allowance, which is what freelancers and gig workers rely on, is £172.48 a week. Try covering even the basics with that, let alone the extra expenses that come with having a newborn.
When Badenoch says we need more “personal responsibility” – as if women aren’t already doing everything they can to stay afloat – she’s missing the point entirely. Maternity pay isn’t about handouts; it’s about ensuring that families aren’t plunged into poverty when they have a child.
Then Badenoch claimed that there was a time when there wasn’t any maternity pay, and people were having more babies. It got me thinking about the tradwife trend – a movement of mostly young women nostalgic for the 1950s, when it was supposedly easier for a woman to stay home and raise children.
It makes you wonder: is Kemi Badenoch a secret fan? The whole tradwife fantasy is based on this romantic idea of a simpler time when women didn’t work outside the home. But like Badenoch’s remarks, it ignores reality.
The 1950s were an era of economic growth, post-war social programmes, and affordable housing – factors that made it possible, in some families, to live on a single income.
However, even back then not every family could afford for the woman to stay at home. Many women, especially working-class women and women of colour, had to work to survive, often employed in low-paying jobs with no protections or benefits.
That model just doesn’t work anymore. The cost of living has exploded since the 1950s. Housing is unaffordable, childcare costs are through the roof, and stagnant wages mean that most families today depend on two incomes just to stay afloat. The choice to stay at home, to not work, or to not take maternity pay isn’t a real choice for most families today.
After maternity leave ends, many parents face crippling childcare costs. In the UK, parents can pay anywhere between £1000 to £1500 a month for childcare. Once statutory maternity pay ends, many families find themselves facing a financial cliff. They’re forced to make impossible choices, between their careers, their livelihoods, and their children’s well-being.
It’s hard not to feel completely and utterly exasperated at this entire debate when you think about the broader context – and honestly, it is the main reason I can’t quite close the door on going back to France.
Housing costs are through the roof, childcare is extortionate, and wages are stagnant. Yet somehow, we’re discussing whether £184 a week is too generous for new mothers.
Let’s take a step back and remember why maternity pay exists. It’s not just about helping individual families, it’s about the health and stability of society as a whole. Countries that support parents with robust family policies, like France, tend to have healthier birth rates and stronger long-term economic prospects.
The UK, meanwhile, is falling behind, and it’s no wonder: when having a child feels like a financial risk, many people are understandably putting it off or deciding not to have children at all.
Even fellow Conservatives, like Robert Jenrick, have pointed out that the UK’s maternity pay is among the lowest in the OECD.
And when James Cleverly and Tom Tugendhat – who, along with Jenrick, are running against Badenoch for the Tory party leadership – are also saying that the system isn’t generous enough, it’s clear Badenoch’s views are out of touch with the realities most families face.
It’s not the first time Conservatives have peddled these sorts of ideas. Last year, George Eustice argued that stay-at-home motherhood is being undermined by government policies encouraging women to return to work, claiming that a mother’s “natural nurturing role” is being devalued.
He even went as far as to suggest that men and women are “biologically wired” differently, a statement that critics have slammed as unscientific and steeped in outdated stereotypes.
Former Tory MP Miriam Cates linked the rise in children starting school in nappies to more women working (not parents, specifically women), blaming the shift on what she calls a “GDP-obsessed economic system” that forces mothers of young children into the workforce.
These comments, echoing sentiments from bygone times, reveal a worrying effort to reframe gender roles, subtly (or not so subtly) suggesting that women’s primary duty is at home, while economic participation is a threat to family life.
Instead of focusing on shared responsibilities or modern childcare solutions, these views idealise a past that disregards the economic pressures most families face today, while ignoring the progress made on gender equality.
In truth, maternity pay in the UK isn’t excessive, it is actually a joke. What families need today isn’t a return to the past, but a future where they’re supported through realistic maternity pay, affordable childcare, and wages that keep pace with the cost of living.
Until we start taking these issues seriously, of course people will be delaying or avoiding having children altogether. Who can blame them? Because, right now, the UK is a hostile environment for families.
