'Kemi Badenoch thinks maternity pay is "excessive"? You have to laugh'
Another day, another prominent figure doing their bit to slow down the fight for working parents. During a recent radio interview as part of her Conservative party leadership bid, Kemi Badenoch (former Minister for Women and Equalities) sparked controversy after describing maternity pay as “excessive” and called for greater “personal responsibility”.
In full, the Tory leader hopeful claimed, “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… Businesses are closing, businesses are not starting in the UK, because they say that the burden of regulation is too high.”
She also added, when it was suggested that women could no longer have children without maternity pay, "We need to have more personal responsibility. There was a time when there wasn't any maternity pay and people were having more babies." That time, friends, was in 1911 – before the invention of the pill. Is that something we really want to be championing?
Elsewhere, in the present day, I’d also like to ask Badenoch if she’s ever actually tried raising a baby on an income that’s only 47% of the National Living Wage (which is how maternity pay pans out)? Yes, Badenoch is a mother, but given her husband is an investment banker, I doubt she needed to stress too much about finances during her own maternity leaves.
As soon as I heard her words, I felt the air go out of me. I could practically feel the nods of those living in their confirmation bias who think if you “can’t afford” children, you should just… simply not have them. Yes, they’d be nodding, maternity pay is too much. Why should businesses and the government pick up the slack for your children? Take! Some! Responsibility! But as I – and so many other new families living in 2024 know very well – it's not the child that's expensive. It's everything else: the minimal support, the prohibitive cost of childcare, the rising cost of groceries.
Those who’ve experienced it will know very well: maternity pay is an absolute joke. Strictly in a ‘gotta laugh or I’ll cry and never stop’ sort of way, of course. All businesses legally have to offer at least the minimum statutory pay – which is 90% of your weekly earnings for six weeks, before dropping to either £184.03 per week, or 90% of the mother’s weekly earnings, whichever is lowest, for 33 weeks.
In contrast with Badenoch’s comments, small businesses actually stand to gain something from paying their staff statutory maternity leave, as they can reclaim 103% of the costs from the government (they got a bonus admin fee). All other businesses recoup 92%, so hardly a huge loss either.
This, combined with the fact that maternity pay in the UK is some of the lowest among comparable countries – and that the cost of living crisis has only exacerbated the financial hardships experienced by new mothers and their families – makes Badenoch's comments even more baffling and frustrating.
In 2021, the most common employment pattern for couples with children was both partners working full-time, and even two income households were – and are – struggling. Imagine what single-parent families must have to go through? Is it really any wonder then that nearly three in five women, myself included, have to return early from maternity leave for financial reasons?
Despite having my partner's wage too, with a precarious freelance career in one hand and a five-week-old daughter in the other, I had to work harder than I’d ever before, less than two months after giving birth. I wrote articles and pitched to new clients with my baby attached to my breast, on top of catering to the wonderful-but-relentless needs of my newborn, knowing that as soon as my statutory maternity pay came in, my portion of our £1,395 rent would be going out. It wouldn’t even cover half, let alone anything else.
When I was on maternity leave, the sum of support was a mere £172.48 per week. This year, maternity pay has slightly increased by £9.95 per week but it’s still nowhere near enough. I remember one friend describing why maternity leave was unenjoyable for her, saying, “It felt like I was just watching the clock, waiting to run out of money and have to give up my time with my baby”. Another mother said she’s spent all her savings to cover the shortfall left by SMP: “I had £7K and it’s gone. The joke is I can’t even build it back up as all my wage now goes on childcare”.
Since Badenoch made her comments, she’s now confirmed that she does “believe in maternity pay”, and sees it as “a good thing”. She claimed there was "some mischief being made on social media trying to misrepresent me" (despite her quotes being taken verbatim from the transcript).
The thing that got me is that she called maternity pay a "function of tax". Claiming that mothers are taking from one group of people and giving to another. But isn’t that how tax works? She argued that businesses are closing because of it (won’t somebody think of the businesses!?), but given the aforementioned 103% of the costs they can claim back... I struggle to believe that.
Yet, here we are, waiting for our government to treat mothers with a level of professional respect while they do the hardest job in the world... alongside trying to smash (or at least keep steady) their actual jobs. I’d like to say I’m surprised by Badenoch’s comments, especially as the Conservative Party seems intent on getting us to have more kids (who could forget Jacob “traditional family values” Rees-Mogg’s charming appeal: “I've done my bit by having six, so now you do yours”) – but I’m not.
I’ll give you the skinny, Badenoch: the answer lies in supporting working parents properly, not making them feel like a burden to the system – least not because the children they bear are the very people who will help support the system as they grow up. I imagine it won’t be “too excessive” to take their money then, will it?
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