Indian officials say the Tory leader signed off on the tax exemption when she was trade secretary.
Kemi Badenoch has criticised the UK-India trade deal’s national insurance exemption, calling it “two-tier taxes from two-tier Keir”.
However, the Financial Times reports that while trade secretary, Badenoch negotiated the same tax deal with Indian officials.
In an embarrassing turn for Badenoch, New Delhi officials said that the Tory leader also agreed to the principle of exempting Indian workers in the UK from national insurance — a benefit extended to British workers in India.
One official remarked: “It’s amazing. It was on the table when she was trade secretary.”
Another said: “The Tories offered us two years but we said it wasn’t enough.”
They also said that the deal was 95% done when Badenoch was trade secretary.
Badenoch denied the claims, calling them “fake news”.
In a post on X, she said: “This is total and utter rubbish. I never agreed to any such tax deal. The evidence couldn’t be clearer — I refused to sign the deal.
“As I have always said – No Deal is Better Than a Bad Deal.”
A Labour spokesperson said: “Kemi Badenoch has been caught out by her own hypocrisy again. She says one thing but she has done another.”
During PMQs, Keir Starmer pointed out that the tax exemption is part of agreements Britain already has with 50 other countries and that her criticism was “incoherent nonsense”.
Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward
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