Kemi Badenoch’s speech to Scottish Conservative conference

Full text of Kemi Badenoch's speech to the Scottish Conservative & Unionist Party conference:

"Good afternoon – thank you very much.

And thank you Russell for that introduction.

I was in Wales last week and I'm here in Scotland today

And I'm pleased to report that unlike Labour all four corners of the Conservative and Unionist Party are very much united.

I am so proud to have Russell Findlay's support… we are a strong team.

What a contrast with Labour.

It tells you all you need to know about Anas Sarwar that it was only when he said he had lost confidence in the Prime Minister that Keir Starmer was suddenly safe in his job.

Before I go on, I want to thank every single one of you here today…

Russell, our MSPs and our wonderful activists.

Our Scottish Councillors. Our MPs David Mundell, John Lamont, Harriet Cross, John Cooper…

And of course, my Shadow Scotland Secretary Andrew Bowie.

All of you here today know that there is only one group of people standing up for the Scottish economy for the future of the United Kingdom and for common sense in the Scottish Parliament.

And that's Russell and his team of MSPs.

Conference I was elected 15 months ago to renew this great party and that renewal is well underway.

Under my leadership we are building a new Conservative Party.

A party fit for the 2030s.

Underpinned by our timeless Conservative principles.

And unlike anyone else in British politics a party with a plan to get Britain working again.

Let me tell you we are going to win again.

We are going to save this country from a path of economic suicide led by the Labour Party in

Westminster and by the SNP here in Scotland.

And we are going to bring good times back to Britain.

To do that, the Conservative party we're building must be a party of our entire United Kingdom.

Our principles are shared by people in every corner of Great Britain. People who work hard, play by the rules, want to get on in life.

These are our people whether they see themselves as Conservatives yet or not.

It is our job to show them that the Conservative Party is the party of common sense and also the common ground.

If you believe in personal responsibility. If you believe in the rule of law. If you want an economy which works and you think that the UK is better off together, then we're on your side.

The Scottish National Party have spent the last two decades letting Scotland down.

In every single area they have failed.

A&E targets haven't been met for years.

Crime is on the rise and there are a thousand fewer police officers than five years ago.

When the SNP came to power Scottish schools were outperforming schools in England.

Now, school performance here is at historic lows.

Generations of Scottish children have fallen behind their English contemporaries for no other reason than the SNP's failure.

What's caused this? Are they spending a lot less than we are in England? No.

Scotland has the highest tax burden anywhere in the UK.

People here are paying more and getting less.

And the Scottish economy is now stuck in a high tax, low growth doom loop.

Where 1 in every £7 spent by the Scottish Government goes on benefits.

Scotland has lost out on £12 billion of growth since the SNP took power because they don't care at all about the economy.

God knows how many people have missed out on opportunities because of that – not getting a first job, missing out on the chance of promotion, businesses going under.

The SNP have robbed Scotland of opportunity.

And now they've even taken to robbing each other. Allegedly.

The only industry that has received any boost from the SNP government is second-hand motorhomes.

But there is a serious point to be made about the authorities' handling of Peter Murrell's case.

Just a few days ago, we learned that the Lord Advocate gave John Swinney a tip off about the details of the charges.

This smacks of corruption. 

It is an absurd state of affairs that the Lord Advocate is currently in charge of an organisation prosecuting a case against a senior SNP figure whilst being in the SNP Government's cabinet.

So, today I can announce the Conservatives would end this conflict of interest and split the Lord Advocate's role so this can never happen again.

And what have Scotland's other “opposition” parties had to say about the SNP's failure?

Labour and the Liberal Democrats have voted through their budgets, their mad gender recognition proposals.

The Greens have been in coalition.

This cosy left-wing consensus has stayed silent as Scotland has declined and the people of Scotland have got poorer.

Instead of growing the economy and bringing down people's bills, they've been working together on left-wing ideological obsessions.

Allowing rapists into women's prisons.

Pursuing nurses through the courts for wanting private changing spaces.

Last time I was in Edinburgh I met Sandie Peggie who told me what she'd been through.

It is disgraceful that NHS Fife have spent more time harassing this woman than providing dignity to their staff and following the law as set by the Supreme Court.

This left-wing consensus have been attacking free speech.

Wasting millions on failed projects, like ferries that don't float.

The only people at Holyrood who have had the backbone to stand up to this madness are the Conservatives.

Russell and I were elected just over a month apart.

And I think he and I have had quite a similar experience in that time.

We have both built strong teams.

We have both done a little bit of spring cleaning, especially of people who don't share our values.

And we have both watched an incompetent government flail around wrecking our economy while pursuing pet projects and grievances that make no difference to normal people's lives.

But unlike some other people who shout very loud and hold endless press conferences, we haven't just watched.

We have actually done something about these useless governments.

Down in Westminster, Keir Starmer has been in power for 18 months.

He and his chaotic team have made terrible decisions after terrible decision and then thanks to my team been forced to reverse them.

I've lost count of the number of U turns they've had to make.

They are blowing around like a plastic bag in the wind.

If it wasn't for the work of Conservatives, family farms here in Scotland would soon be being broken up.

Can you imagine how cruel you'd have to be, how stupid, to want to see Scotland's farming industry broken up?

Families that have reared livestock in Aberdeenshire for generations, grown barley in the Borders, having to sell up because of Labour's ignorance?

Shameful.

What have the SNP or Reform achieved for Scotland in that time?

Nothing.

It's only the Conservatives standing up for people.

And that's just what we can achieve in Opposition.

Imagine what we can do when we get into Government.

Conference, I have been reflecting on the reason Labour have failed so badly.

On what has led to their complete and abject failure from the moment they walked into office.

So much of it comes back to one thing: Labour weren't honest with people.

They weren't willing to explain the trade-offs necessary in government.

They came into office with no plan, no leadership, no sense of purpose.

And, as a result, they have delivered nothing.

Politics is about believing in something.

Setting out a plan before an election and saying: “That's what I'm going to do to fix this country.”

“This is why I'm going to do it, and this is how I'm going to do it.”

Conference, that is what my Conservative Party is doing.

At the foundation of everything we do will be a return to our Conservative economic principles.

Unless our economy can fund our standard of life, Britain will slide into terminal decline.

We need to hammer home the message that it not government that creates growth, it is business that creates growth.

It is business that innovates. It is business that creates jobs.

Government needs to create the conditions for business to do that.

We need to cut taxes, we need to bring the welfare bill down, and make it make sense to work again.

Unemployment has gone up every single month since Labour took office.

Youth unemployment is now higher in the UK than the EU for the first time ever.

Is it any surprise when Labour have made it their mission to crush jobs and growth, just like the SNP have been doing here in Scotland?

Take oil and gas.

Labour's plan, spearheaded by Ed Miliband, is to export our energy jobs to China.

He is killing off the British energy industry and our energy security to meet a load of self-imposed vanity targets here at home.

While importing wind turbines and solar panels from a country building a new coal-fired power station every other week.

In Scotland, for every three jobs being lost in oil and gas only one is created in green energy.

The other jobs are being exported abroad.

What's Reform's bright idea to fix this? To part nationalise oil and gas.

Let me tell you… the last thing the oil and gas industry needs is politicians running their businesses.

The Conservatives actually have a plan for cheap, reliable British energy.

We are going to rip up the net zero targets crushing our industry and replace them with a proper strategy that works.

We will overturn the ban on supporting oil and gas technology exports.

We will scrap the Energy Profits Levy. You can't have a windfall tax when there is no windfall to tax.

And we will scrap the ban on new oil and gas licences.

When I was in Aberdeen I was horrified to hear the SNP are costing Scotland's oil and gas sector one thousand jobs a month.

This has got to end.

Under my leadership we are going to champion our own industry and we are going to put Scotland at the heart of our energy industry for the next generation.

Backing British energy isn't just about jobs in the energy sector.

Businesses in the UK are currently paying four times as much for electricity as businesses in the US and Norway.

No wonder they can't compete.

Take the Scotch whisky industry.

The last time I was here in Edinburgh was the day I sacked Robert Jenrick.

I was in the Johnny Walker Experience drinking whisky cocktails with Rusell and Andrew. They tasted especially delicious that day for some reason…

But the Scotch whisky industry is suffering under Labour.

The biggest concern they raised with me was the exorbitant cost of energy.

And the ridiculous tax burden they're facing.

That's what we have to fix.

And what about Scotland's farming industry?

Yes, we have managed to get a partial reversal of the Family Farms Tax.

And by the way, when we win the next election, we are going to scrap this vindictive tax entirely.

But that's not enough. Backing British farming and keeping Scottish food on British plates means farmers need a route to profitability.

They need lower energy costs.

Lower input costs like feed, sprays, fertiliser.

Access to the capital they need to innovate.

None of this is coming under the SNP and Labour.

They simply don't understand or care about rural Scotland.

Friends, we have work to do.

The journey of renewal has only just begun.

In May people in Scotland will be given a choice…

To stick with an SNP government that has failed them for 20 years.

To vote for a Labour Party that has proven itself incapable of governing.

To vote for a Reform Party that might share some of our instincts on immigration but which, at its core, is full of drama queens with no serious plan for this country. With some people who think I'm not British and neither are my children.

They have those choices…

Or they can vote for a Conservative Party with a plan to get Scotland working again.

We know that there is only one good answer to that choice.

And it's up to us to show people that, if you don't want your hard-earned money wasted on pointless left-wing projects, Russell and his team have a plan for a new Taxpayers Savings Act.

And if you want more than £1 billion saved from Scotland's bloated benefits bill, Russell and his team have a plan for new rigorous assessments.

Every other party supports more benefits spending.

Only the Conservatives will bring it down.

If you think your taxes are too high, Russell and his team have a plan to cut income tax for most Scottish households.

If you want your local high-street to thrive… Russell and his team have a plan to abolish business rates for most shops, pubs and cafes.

Russell and his team are the only people with a plan to get Scotland working again.

And let me tell you this conference…

There's another very good reason why people should vote Conservative on 7 May.

We in this room are the only people in Scottish politics who believe that Britain is stronger together.

There is only one party in Scottish politics that cares about the United Kingdom.

Only one party that would vote against a referendum on independence.

The SNP are obsessed with breaking up the UK.

John Swinney has spent his life campaigning for it.

But when it comes to doing the day job, they have failed.

Schools and the NHS have been devolved here for nearly 30 years.

Taxes have been devolved for a decade.

And since then, the SNP have been spending more and delivering less.

They have achieved nothing for the people of Scotland.

The SNP need to keep Westminster as the bogeyman to deflect from the fact that they don't know how to fix anything.

Labour's belief in the union is negotiable.

And Reform's new leader, Lord Offord of Garvel, who has apparently now transitioned to Malcolm from Greenock, he's actually been talking up another referendum.

Saying they're going to field pro-independence candidates.

Reform don't believe in anything. They just want power.

I need you to help me spread the word.

That if you believe in a United Kingdom, if you believe in fixing all four corners of our great nation at once, then you have to support the Conservatives.

Because we are the only party who share that belief.

If you don't want the next 5 years of the Scottish Parliament to become a psychodrama about another independence referendum…

And instead, you want the next 5 years to be about the Scottish economy. About jobs. About fixing public services…

Then vote Conservative on 7 May.

We need to spread the word, that to stop an SNP majority, people need to vote Scottish Conservative and Unionist on their peach ballot paper.

We did it in 2016. We did it in 2021.

And we need to do it again this year.

Conference, we are a new party now.

Under new leadership…

And under my leadership, everything we do will be led by our principles.

I always say that the Labour Party fail when they follow their principles.

We fail when we don't follow ours.

Conservative principles are the principles shared by decent, hardworking people in every corner of our United Kingdom.

So I say to the Scottish Conservative Party, that we have to show people here in Scotland that if they care about aspiration, if they care about fairness, if they care about family and their neighbourhoods, the Conservatives are the party who share your values.

We have to show them that these aren't just slogans.

But that we also have the plan to back them up.

We believe in hard work, so vote for our plan to scrap business rates for pubs and high street shops.

We believe in aspiration, so vote for our plan to abolish the Land and Buildings Transaction Tax on people's homes.

We believe in living within our means, so vote for our plan to pay down the country's deficit for our children and grandchildren.

We believe in public order, so vote for our plan to ensure criminals serve their full sentences.

We believe in security, so vote for our plan to fix our borders and to make sure it's impossible to stay in this country if you come here illegally.

This is what we believe in.

And this is what we will do.

In Scotland, and in the entire United Kingdom.

Thank you."