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Kemi Badenoch has hit back at her Tory leadership rival Robert Jenrick’s claim that her decision not to set out detailed policies was “disrespectful” to the party’s membership. <\/p>\n Speaking to Political Thinking with Nick Robinson,<\/a> Badenoch said she would not use that word about another candidate and that everyone had “their own campaign approach”.<\/p>\n “If this was a general election, yes, it would be wrong to be standing with no policies. This is not a general election,” she told Nick Robinson.<\/p>\n She added: “He [Jenrick] doesn’t know what he’s going to be standing on in four years’ time.”<\/p>\n Jenrick stood by his criticism in an interview with BBC Radio 5’s Matt Chorley.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n “Kemi and I disagree on this point. I believe you have to start with principles and values, but I think that is not enough. You also have to have policies.”<\/p>\n He argued that the public were “deeply sceptical” of politicians and the best way to win them back was to set out policies and “lay out the trade-offs”. <\/p>\n “The age of policy-free politics is over,” he said, adding that it was “wrong” to ask party members to support you “on the basis of a plan for tomorrow”.<\/p>\n During the leadership campaign, Jenrick has said he wants to leave<\/a> the European Convention on Human Rights, encourage housebuilding and oppose Labour’s plans on reaching net-zero carbon emissions. <\/p>\n Defending her approach, Badenoch said the party members know what her principles are. She said she would take time to design policies adding: “We have time, we don’t need to rush.”<\/p>\n She said she did not want to make promises “unless I know how I am going to deliver it”. <\/p>\n Earlier in the week, Jenrick told BBC Radio 4’s Westminster Hour:<\/a> “I think it\u2019s disrespectful to the members and the public to ask for their votes without saying where you stand on the big issues facing our country today.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Conservative Party members are currently voting between the two candidates and a result is due on 2 November.<\/p>\n Unlike her rival, Badenoch has not done many media appearances, however in a wide-ranging interview she spoke to Nick Robinson about her thoughts on net-zero, immigration and Covid lockdowns. <\/p>\n On the environment, she said she was a “net-zero sceptic” but not “a climate change sceptic”.<\/p>\n She said she did not want to do something “because it looks good” and “before we figured out how to do it”. <\/p>\n She pointed to speeches she had made in Parliament on subject asking: “Lot’s of schoolchildren will be very happy, but where is the plan?”<\/p>\n She added: “Is net-zero a solution or is it a slogan… I am not sure we have properly thought that through.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n On immigration, she said “numbers matter but culture matters more”.<\/p>\n For several years, Conservative politicians have promised<\/a> to get down the numbers coming into the country, but immigration has continued to rise, hitting record levels in 2022.<\/p>\n Badenoch said there should be a cap on numbers but it was also important to ensure those arriving “love British culture”. <\/p>\n Asked how the government should decide this, Badenoch said it was important to establish from which countries “successful migrants” were coming from.<\/p>\n “We should be getting to a point where we can say we’re happy to take more from countries A, B and C and for countries X, Y and Z, we’re going to have stricter rules.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n During the coronavirus pandemic, Badenoch was a Treasury minister. She said she would not apologise for spending “a lot” during Covid but added: “I think we just overran it to the point where it made inflation worse than it needed to be.”<\/p>\n She also said she thought the government “overdid it in terms of the length of lockdown”.<\/p>\n “There was a King Canute sort of situation. I thought that we were trying to do too much, that this was where government was overstretching itself and we weren’t trusting people enough.<\/p>\n “The biggest thing I hated was the fixed penalty notices.”<\/p>\n The notices were issued by the police to people who breached Covid rules, resulting in fines of between \u00a3200 and \u00a310,000.<\/p>\n