PARLIAMENT · WORK · POWER
Parliament Looks After Its Own.
Kemi Badenoch Knows That.
A row about maternity leave, Claire Coutinho and a “woke badge” points towards a much bigger question: why does employment security look so sensible inside Westminster — and so burdensome outside it?
The argument is not that MPs should have worse conditions. It is that Parliament already understands exactly why good conditions matter.
Harriet Harman caused a minor political row when she discussed Kemi Badenoch’s decision to promote Claire Coutinho while Coutinho was pregnant and preparing to take maternity leave.
Speaking with Ruth Davidson on Sky News’ Electoral Dysfunction podcast, Harman described Badenoch’s decision as “very progressive” and jokingly suggested the Conservative leader deserved a “woke badge”.
Coutinho understandably objected to the implication that her pregnancy had anything to do with her promotion. She said she had been promoted on merit.
But there is a much more interesting question underneath all of this.
Why should any of it be remarkable?
Kemi Badenoch can decide who serves in her shadow cabinet. She can promote Coutinho. She can arrange for another politician to cover the portfolio.
But Badenoch does not personally employ Claire Coutinho as an MP. She does not pay her parliamentary salary. She does not determine MPs’ maternity arrangements. She does not decide their pension arrangements or personally fund the parliamentary machinery that allows an MP to continue functioning while absent.
01
“We MPs Who Are Mothers Are Well Looked After”
Those aren’t my words.
They are Kemi Badenoch’s.
In 2019, while pregnant with her third child, Badenoch wrote an article with precisely that title: We MPs who are mothers are well looked after.
She made an unusually direct comparison between the circumstances enjoyed by MPs and those experienced by women outside Westminster.
“Statutory maternity pay is £148 a week, while an MP receives full pay even when we take maternity leave.”
Kemi Badenoch, 2019
Badenoch also acknowledged that being an MP gave her considerably more flexibility than her previous careers.
“It’s a demanding job but it offers much greater autonomy for pregnant women than I had in my two previous careers.”
Kemi Badenoch, 2019
She recognised that women on minimum wages, self-employed women and single mothers could experience pregnancy very differently.
In other words, she understood the distinction.
Parliament
Institutional support.
Continuity.
Autonomy.
Protection.
Ordinary Work
Cost.
Regulation.
Burden.
Personal responsibility.
02
£98,599 — Before We Get to the Rest
The basic salary of an MP in 2026/27 is £98,599.
In 2018 it was £77,379.
That means the basic salary has increased by approximately 27 per cent in eight years.
The latest increase alone was 5 per cent, taking the salary from £93,904 to £98,599.
And MPs don’t negotiate that annual increase with their individual employer.
Their pay is determined independently by the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, IPSA.
IPSA has also benchmarked the parliamentary salary at around £110,000 and intends to move MPs progressively towards that level during this Parliament.
Then There Is the Infrastructure Around the Job
For 2026/27, indicative staffing budgets run to around £276,540 for MPs outside London and £296,080 for London MPs.
Office budgets are approximately £37,080 and £40,830 respectively.
Eligible MPs can receive accommodation funding. Parliamentary travel can be funded. There are pension arrangements, security provisions, workplace adjustments and additional resources necessary for carrying out parliamentary duties.
None of this means an MP receives hundreds of thousands of pounds in personal expenses.
They don’t.
Staffing money pays staff. Office money operates offices. Legitimate parliamentary expenses are costs associated with performing the job.
That distinction matters.
But something else matters too.
Parliament has constructed an extraordinarily comprehensive employment infrastructure around the people who sit inside it.
And perhaps it should.
MPs have important jobs.
They should have decent salaries. They should have pensions. Women shouldn’t have to choose between having children and remaining in Parliament. MPs shouldn’t personally finance staff required to serve tens of thousands of constituents.
The interesting question isn’t why MPs receive these protections.
It is why politicians so often become considerably more sceptical about employment protection when discussing everybody else.
03
Then Came “Personal Responsibility”
Fast-forward to the 2024 Conservative leadership contest.
Badenoch was questioned by Times Radio about maternity pay and the burden placed on businesses.
She argued that government regulation had gone too far.
“We’re taking from one group of people and giving to another. This, in my view, is excessive.”
Kemi Badenoch, 2024
When challenged about people who could not afford to have children without maternity support, Badenoch responded:
“We need to have more personal responsibility.”
Kemi Badenoch, 2024
She also observed:
“There was a time when there wasn’t any maternity pay and people were having more babies.”
Kemi Badenoch, 2024
Badenoch subsequently insisted her comments had been misconstrued.
“Of course maternity pay isn’t excessive,” she said.
Her argument, she maintained, concerned the cumulative regulatory burden imposed upon businesses rather than maternity pay itself.
That clarification should be included.
But so should the original exchange.
Because there is something fascinating about the language.
There is another piece of context that often disappears from this argument.
Employers generally don’t simply pay the entire cost of Statutory Maternity Pay themselves.
Most can recover 92 per cent from HMRC, while qualifying small employers can recover more than the amount paid through Small Employers’ Relief.
The state already recognises that maternity is a social responsibility that shouldn’t simply be dumped upon an individual employer.
Which makes Badenoch’s own 2019 observations particularly important.
She understood the problem.
She had lived inside the better system.
04
This Isn’t Really About Maternity
Maternity provides an unusually clear example, but it also fits a wider political pattern.
Badenoch has developed a reputation for ideological certainty.
Her political brand is built around saying difficult things, resisting fashionable opinions and refusing to bend to political pressure.
But look at the record and something more complicated emerges.
Net Zero
Before becoming Conservative leader, Badenoch had been deeply sceptical of the policy and had described the 2050 target in extraordinarily hostile terms.
Then came the 2022 Conservative leadership contest.
Badenoch explicitly backed the 2050 net-zero target and said she would not abandon the commitment.
By 2025, now Conservative leader, she announced:
“Net zero by 2050 is impossible.”
Kemi Badenoch, 2025
Perhaps her assessment changed.
Politicians are allowed to change their minds.
But voters are equally entitled to notice when they do.
05
The ECHR Followed a Familiar Route
Something similar happened with the European Convention on Human Rights.
Badenoch previously resisted simplistic demands for Britain to leave the ECHR.
She argued that withdrawal was not a “silver bullet” and that the practical consequences needed proper consideration.
That was a perfectly defensible position.
By October 2025, leaving the ECHR had become Conservative Party policy under her leadership.
Again, circumstances can change.
Evidence can change.
Political leaders can legitimately reach different conclusions.
But the timing matters.
By then the Conservatives were fighting an increasingly aggressive battle with Reform UK for voters on the political right.
The woman whose political appeal rests partly upon refusing to follow political fashion had arrived at a position remarkably convenient for the political market in which she was now competing.
06
Then There Is Immigration
Immigration provides an even larger institutional contradiction.
Badenoch didn’t arrive in Westminster after the Conservatives left government.
She entered Parliament in 2017.
She became a government minister.
She served in Conservative administrations while the post-Brexit immigration system was constructed and while legal migration rose dramatically.
She served as Equalities Minister.
She served as Minister for Local Government, Faith and Communities.
She became International Trade Secretary.
She became Business and Trade Secretary.
She sat around the governmental table.
Then, once the Conservatives were removed from office, Badenoch became one of the politicians telling Britain that immigration had become far too high.
Again, she may genuinely believe that.
But government isn’t something that merely happened in another building while she watched.
For years she was part of it.
That distinction matters whenever politicians reinvent themselves as commentators on systems they previously administered.
07
Boris Johnson Shows the Political Problem
The same caution is necessary when examining Boris Johnson.
Badenoch served in his government.
When she eventually resigned during the collapse of Johnson’s premiership in July 2022, the joint resignation letter praised his:
“fortitude, stamina and enduring optimism”
Joint ministerial resignation letter, July 2022
Her resignation nevertheless contributed to the political avalanche that destroyed his premiership.
Shortly afterwards, Badenoch was running to replace him.
None of that proves dishonesty.
Political circumstances change. Ministers eventually decide leaders have become incapable of continuing. Resigning from a government isn’t inherently opportunistic.
But put it beside the other examples and a legitimate question emerges.
Where does conviction finish and political positioning begin?
08
Even Conversion Therapy Shows How Language Moves
In 2021, while serving as Equalities Minister, Badenoch told Parliament:
“We will bring forward legislation to ban conversion therapy.”
Kemi Badenoch, 2021
The proposed protection explicitly concerned sexual orientation and gender identity.
Later, Badenoch began warning that unquestioning affirmation of some transgender identities could itself amount to a “new form of conversion therapy”.
Whatever someone’s position on the underlying debate, notice how dramatically the framing changed.
The political battlefield moved.
So did the language.
Again.
09
Politicians Can Change Their Minds
There is an easy response to all of this.
People change their minds.
Of course they do.
I would rather have a politician change their position after encountering better evidence than stubbornly defend something they know is wrong.
The question isn’t whether Kemi Badenoch has ever changed her mind.
Every serious politician has.
The question is whether there is a discernible relationship between those changes and the political incentives surrounding her at the time.
Taken individually, explanations can be offered for every one.
Taken together, they deserve examination.
Particularly because Badenoch’s political brand is not pragmatism.
It is conviction.
10
Back to Claire Coutinho
Which brings us back to the supposedly extraordinary sight of a pregnant woman being promoted.
There is nothing extraordinary about it.
Or there shouldn’t be.
Claire Coutinho should be capable of having a child without destroying her career.
Her parliamentary income shouldn’t disappear because she becomes pregnant.
Her political party should be capable of arranging temporary cover.
She should be considered for promotion on merit whether she is pregnant or not.
That isn’t woke.
It is what a functioning modern institution looks like.
Harriet Harman’s framing therefore risks obscuring the more interesting story.
Kemi Badenoch isn’t personally granting maternity rights to Claire Coutinho.
Westminster has constructed an institutional environment in which motherhood and a parliamentary career can coexist.
Badenoch herself benefited from that environment.
And in 2019 she was refreshingly candid about it.
We MPs who are mothers are well looked after.
Kemi Badenoch · 2019
11
Parliament Understands Employment Security Perfectly Well
Perhaps we should stop complaining that MPs are well looked after.
Instead, ask why everybody else isn’t.
Parliament understands that important work requires proper staffing.
It understands that people need pensions.
It understands that workplaces need resources.
It understands that pregnancy shouldn’t destroy a career.
It understands that illness, absence and family responsibilities require institutional solutions.
It understands that an individual shouldn’t personally carry every financial risk created by circumstances outside their control.
And it understands that remuneration has to increase as the economy and labour market change.
When those principles operate inside Westminster, we call them the necessary costs of maintaining Parliament.
Move outside Westminster and suddenly the vocabulary changes.
Perhaps that is the contradiction worth talking about.
Not whether Kemi Badenoch deserves Harriet Harman’s “woke badge”.
Not whether Claire Coutinho should have been promoted.
And not whether politicians are paid too much.
The question is much simpler.
If employment security is good enough for the people making Britain’s employment laws, why is providing more of it to the people living under those laws so often treated as something the country cannot afford?
Kemi Badenoch understood the value of that security perfectly well in 2019.
She told us herself.