Tory leadership candidate Kemi Badenoch has said maternity pay has “gone too far” and the government needed to interfere less in peoples’ lives.

Speaking to Times Radio, Badenoch said statutory maternity pay, set up to support mothers for 39 weeks after having a baby, is a “function of tax”, calling it “excessive”.

The shadow business secretary did not say what she thought the right level of maternity pay should be, but said the government should be reducing regulatory burdens.

She said: “We need to have more personal responsibility – there was a time when there wasn’t any maternity pay and people were having more babies.”

Badenoch later said that she “of course” believes maternity pay.

Statutory maternity pay starts at 90% of average weekly earnings for six weeks – then falls to the lowest of either £184.03 or 90% of the mother’s average salary for 33 weeks.

In an interview with Times Radio, Badenoch was asked if she thought maternity pay was at the right level.

She said: “Maternity pay varies, depending on who you work for – but statutory maternity pay is a function of tax, tax comes from people who are working.

“We’re taking from one group of people and giving to another. This, in my view, is excessive.

“Businesses are closing, businesses are not starting in the UK, because they say that the burden of regulation is too high.”

She added that “the exact amount of maternity pay in my view is neither here nor there.”

“We need to make sure that we are creating an environment where people can work and people can have more freedom to make their individual decisions.

“It has got to a point where government has become about technocratic micro policy management. That is not what is going to get this country growing.”

According to Lord Michael Ashcroft’s biography of Badenoch, she resigned instead of taking maternity leave as head of digital operations at the Spectator.

Fellow Tory leadership candidate Robert Jenrick said he did “not agree with Kemi on this one”.

Speaking at the Conservative party conference, Jenrick said: “I am a father of three young daughters – I want to see them get the support that they need when they enter the workplace.”

“Our maternity pay is among the lowest in the OECD. I think the Conservative Party should be firmly on the side of parents and working mums who are trying to get by.

“Nobody says it is easy having kids, why would we want to make it harder?”

Responding to Badenoch’s comments, Tom Tugendhat said: “I’m not going to tell people how to run their lives and how to share different caring responsibilities.”

Tugendhat, who is also running to be the next leader of the party, said: “I think maternity and paternity care are very important.

“One of the things I missed out on, years ago is we didn’t have the same rights on paternity care and I think many of us, fathers would have loved to spend more time with our kids.”

The fourth and final Tory leadership candidate, James Cleverly, also rejected Badenoch’s claims.

He said: “When it comes to working mothers the cost of childcare is too expensive.

“It was government meddling that made it expensive and rather tax and subsidies.

“Let’s make childcare cheaper so that mums who want to can go back to work and can afford to do so.”