Speaking at Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday, the Tory leader was hitting out at Keir Starmer and his party’s Budget amid news that UK borrowing costs have increased to a 27-year high.
Badenoch then hit out at Rachel Reeves and cast doubt on her appointment as Chancellor.
“At the Budget, Labour were congratulating themselves for having the first female Chancellor,” she told MPs.
READ MORE: Kate Forbes hits back at Anas Sarwar over ‘bizarre’ comments on business
“Instead of ensuring the country had someone actually qualified to do the job.”
This led to outraged shouts, notably from the Government benches, with one MP audibly saying: “absolutely pathetic.”
After an intervention from the Commons Speaker Lindsay Hoyle, Badenoch continued: “The Prime Minister claims he has full confidence in the Chancellor, but the markets clearly do not.
“Yesterday, the Chancellor repeated her promise to have just one Budget per year to provide businesses with certainty.
“The talk in the city is that she can’t meet her fiscal rules, and there will need to be an emergency budget.”
(Image: House of Commons/UK Parliament/PA Wire)
Badenoch asked: “So does the Prime Minister stand by the Chancellor’s commitment that there will be only one budget this year?”
Starmer responded: “She’ll be pleased to know the Chancellor will be in place for many, many years to come.
“She’ll outstrip them. If we all thought politics was about cheap words, I could criticize their chancellors, but we don’t have enough time to go through all of the chancellors that they had.”
“We have one budget. That’s what we’re committed to – strong fiscal rules, and we’ll stick to them unlike the party opposite.”