Anger over Badenoch's maternity pay remarks

Kemi Badenoch's leadership campaign was in damage control mode on the first day of the Conservative party conference, as rival candidates criticised comments she made on maternity pay.

- Jessica Elgot, Aletha Adu, Peter Walker

She had said the burden on business was "excessive" and that people should exercise more "personal responsibility".

Badenoch, the favourite among party members in the four-way contest, was forced to twice clarify the comments and emphasise that she "of course" believed in maternity pay.

But the comments were seized on by other candidates who distanced themselves from Badenoch's words.

One member of a rival camp said: "Badenoch's mad remarks are one of the only things that could send our [party's] approval ratings down even further."

The former business secretary must survive two more rounds of MPs' voting before the party's members choose from the final two candidates. James Cleverly and Tom Tugendhat will be hoping 14 to squeeze her out before one of them faces off against Robert Jenrick, the frontrunner with MPs.

Badenoch, shadow communities secretary, said one of the principles she was contesting the leadership for was a call for the state to do less.

Asked in the interview with Times Radio if she thought maternity pay was excessive, she replied: "I think it's gone too far the other way, in terms of general business regulation. We need to allow businesses, especially small businesses, to make more of those decisions."

She was told the current level of maternity pay was necessary for people who could not afford to have a baby without it. She replied: "We need to have more personal responsibility. There was a time when there wasn't any maternity pay and people were having more babies."