KEMI BADENOCH’S Tories would plunge children back into misery, Labour warned today.

Responding to a speech on welfare by the Conservative leader, a party spokesperson said: “The Tories’ message on welfare is: we broke it, now put us back in charge. Kemi Badenoch is delusional and is treating the public like fools. 

“Under the Conservatives, the benefits bill rocketed by £114 billion and nearly a million kids were plunged into poverty. Now they want to pretend it didn’t happen.

“There is a simple choice at hand: lifting half a million children out of poverty with Labour, or plunging kids back into that misery under Tory plans.”

Ms Badenoch said cryptically that she wanted a “welfare system but not a welfare state.”

She accused Labour of believing that “the way to end poverty is give money to people in poverty, and give them more money until they’re not in poverty anymore. This has never worked.

“The best way to get children out of poverty is for their parents to have jobs, and for these jobs to pay well.”

In fact, the government has been frantically scrambling for ways to cut welfare, targeting both winter fuel payments to pensioners and assistance for disabled people. 

On both occasions it was forced to retreat by backbench pressure.

Ms Badenoch also retailed stale Tory lines about “people out of work who are better off than people in work.”

The Tories have pledged to find more than £20bn a year in welfare savings if ever returned to government.