Kemi Badenoch today suggested British drivers should not be getting points on their licence if they break 20mph limits.

The Tory leader called for 'balance' in the enforcement of motoring offences as she said doing 22mph in a 20mph zone is 'very different from driving dangerously'.

'I just think that the law-abiding people in this country are having to deal with more and more,' Mrs Badenoch said during a radio interview on Monday.

'It's more taxes, more rules, more regulations, they can't do this, they can't do that.'

Nearly half a million speeding fines issued in 2024 by police forces in Britain were on roads with 20mph speed limits, research has found.

Meanwhile, separate data has shown just over one sixth of Britain's roads - 39,000 miles out of the country's 246,500-mile road network - are subject to a 20mph speed limit.

More than half of London's roads have 20mph speed limits with Sadiq Khan having introduced more than 150 miles of new restrictions since becoming the capital's mayor.

Mrs Badenoch told LBC that speeding fines 'should be about safety, not about making money', when asked about drivers being penalised for doing 22mph in a 20mph zone.

'I don't think that's what people should be getting points on their licence for,' the Tory leader added.

'They should be getting points on their licence for driving dangerously - 22mph is very different from driving dangerously. Let's bring some balance into it.'

Mrs Badenoch said she had heard of a taxi driver who drove 21mph three times in a 20mph zone and had now lost his licence.

'That's his livelihood, I'm not sure that that's fair,' she said.

'What I want is for the police to be doing the things that everybody else can't do; catching burglars, catching shoplifters, catching those people who are hurting us, who are running around stabbing people

'And children who need to be dealt with so that they don't think that looting is a way for them to spend their Easter holidays, because it isn't.'

She also bemoaned an increasing burden being imposed on Brits as they go about their daily lives.

'I just think that the law-abiding people in this country are having to deal with more and more. it's more taxes, more rules, more regulations, they can't do this, they can't do that,' Mrs Badenoch added.

'And yet the people who are doing the really bad stuff are getting away with it.

'The Conservative Party is the party of law and order, I'm not here to say we were perfect before... we absolutely were not, we made mistakes.

'But we're under new management now and I'm saying this is the sort of person I am; I am a law and order Conservative.

'I want us to catch crooks, put them behind bars and, if they're really bad, keep them there as long as we possibly can.'

Responding to Mrs Badenoch's comments, Rod King - the founder and chair of the 20's Plenty for Us campaign, said: '20mph limits are set to provide safer journeys for some of the most vulnerable users of our streets and roads – the young, the elderly, pedestrians, cyclists, parents pushing pushchairs and those with disabilities which limit their sight and hearing.

'When Wales set 20mph for most urban/village roads they found that casualties on those roads in the year before implementation were 33 per cent higher than in the year after implementation.

'Speeding is illegal and choosing to have a lessor penalty in the very places where motors are most likely to interact with vulnerable road users would send a very dangerous message about how we value people outside of cars less than those inside cars.

'Those may be Mrs Badenoch's values but communities across the UK are far more often asking for greater enforcement and sanctions against speeders rather than less. 

'She is out of touch with communities and certainly those who have lost loved ones to people driving illegally.'