Badenoch accused of breaking hustings pledge to Tory MPs on net zero by 2050

Party's former energy minister claims that during 2022 leadership campaign she gave full backing to reaching environmental targets

- Toby Helm Political Editor

Kemi Badenoch has been accused of breaking a promise made to Tory MPs during her leadership campaign after abandoning the party's commitment to reaching net zero by 2050.

Speaking to the Observer, Chris Skidmore, who served as a government minister between 2016 and 2020, said that Badenoch had made clear to a group of Tory MPs and other Conservatives at a leadership hustings in 2022, when she was seeking their votes in the race to replace Boris Johnson, that she backed the policy.

Skidmore said he recalled "how she told a Conservative Environment Network hustings of 60 MPs I organised with [former business and energy secretary] Alok Sharma for the leadership in 2022 that she believed in net zero - and made that promise in private to us all."

Skidmore, a former Tory energy minister who led a high-level review into how the UK could achieve net zero by 2050, added: "While I was conducting the net zero review, I spoke with her during a cabinet committee meeting chaired by Cop[26] president Alok Sharma and she restated again the importance of net zero for green trade and building international supply chains.

"So the speech [last] week seems surprising, especially as it seems to also U-turn on a 2024 manifesto commitment."