# Key points in Kemi Badenoch’s speech at Conservative Party conference

By Tessa Khan — 2026-10-07

Tessa Khan, executive director of Uplift, hit out at Kemi Badenoch’s policies on oil and gas after the Conservative leader delivered her keynote address to Tory members at their party conference.

She said: “Kemi Badenoch is offering Britain failed policies of the past, not answers to the problems people face today.

“More oil and gas won’t lower energy bills – Tory ministers have admitted as much. But nor will it reverse the decline in oil and gas jobs, which more than halved over the past decade under Conservative governments.

“Badenoch has nothing to say about how climate change is already affecting people across Britain – from firefighters battling wildfires, and farmers hit by drought, to workers trying to keep services running in extreme heat. The more we drill, the worse these impacts get.

“The Conservatives are out of step with British business, the majority of whom support phasing out fossil fuels because they understand that the only lasting route to lower energy costs is a clean, homegrown, electrified energy system.

“If Britain wants to reindustrialise, we should be building the energy system of the future, not propping up an industry in decline. To pretend that new oil and gas is a path to growth, energy security and secure jobs is a denial of the facts and a betrayal of workers who need credible industrial planning, not a pipedream.

“Badenoch compares the Conservatives to the revival of M&S. But M&S, unlike the Conservatives, succeeded by staying relevant to the world as it is today.”

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