Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said her approach to the economy would be “completely the opposite” to that of Chancellor Rachel Reeves.
Speaking to the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg on her first day in the job, Badenoch gave a first glimpse of her policy priorities, including on reversing the VAT hike for private schools.
She said the Conservatives “got a lot of things wrong” ahead of their historic election defeat, including on immigration and tax, but refused to give a “post-mortem” of her predecessors and claimed the Partygate scandal was “overblown”.
With appointments to her shadow cabinet expected in the next couple of days, Badenoch said she wanted to show the party was united with a meritocratically selected front bench.
When asked whether she would reverse the chancellor’s decision to increase employers’ national insurance (NI) contributions, Badenoch said she is not the chancellor and also has “very few” MPs.
“We’re not going to be able to oppose anything in terms of getting legislation through,” she said, adding she could only “make the argument that raising taxes in this way… is not going to grow our economy and will leave all of us poorer”.
However, when asked directly whether she would reverse the VAT hike on private schools, Badenoch was definite, saying “yes, yes, I would… because it’s a tax on aspiration, but it won’t raise any money” and was therefore “against our principles”.
She also told Ms Kuenssberg that “it is not the government that creates growth, it is business that creates growth”, adding that this is “completely the opposite of what Rachel Reeves is doing”.
Badenoch, who is the first black leader of a Westminster party, said she not only disagrees with Reeves’ economic policies but also the way she has discussed being the UK’s first woman chancellor in 800 years.
She said: “I think that the best thing will be when we get to a point where the colour of your skin is no more remarkable than the colour of your eyes, or the colour of your hair.
“I find it astonishing that Rachel Reeves keeps talking about how she’s the first female chancellor, which in my view is a very, very low glass ceiling within the Labour Party, which she may have smashed.”
Nowhere near as significant as what other women in this country have achieved