The Conservative Party has promised to remove the rule that leaves thousands of English families financially worse off the moment one parent earns more than £100,000 a year. Speaking to the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg programme, party leader Kemi Badenoch said the threshold amounted to punishing people for working harder, vowing that under a Conservative government it would not matter what someone earns.
What the current rules actually say
Since September 2025, working parents in England have been entitled to 30 hours of free childcare for children aged between nine months and four years old. The catch is the eligibility test: to qualify, both parents must each earn below £100,000. The same threshold governs the government’s tax-free childcare scheme, through which parents pay £8 into an online account for every £2 the state adds, up to a cap of £2,000 per child per year.
The effect, economists say, is a genuine discontinuity rather than a gentle taper. A family can be substantially better off after a promotion that pushes a partner’s salary through the line, and worse off than they were beforehand.
How the Conservatives plan to pay for it
Shadow chancellor Andrew Griffith framed the move as the opening step of a broader assault on the tax system, saying it was a first step towards lower, simpler and fairer taxes. The party says the change would be funded by reducing the number of public servants working in executive non-departmental public bodies, such as Arts Council England and the Environment Agency. On its own figures, the Conservatives say the savings would reach £1.6bn by 2029-30, comfortably covering the roughly £700 million estimated cost of scrapping the threshold.
The Badenoch question
Asked directly whether someone earning £1 million a year should qualify for free childcare under her policy, Badenoch declined to draw a line anywhere. She said it does not matter what you earn, that the party’s aim is not to stop people working but to grow the economy. The party also argues the threshold can push couples towards delaying children or deciding against a family altogether, describing the change as both pro-family and pro-growth.
Why it matters
Childcare costs sit squarely in the middle of the current political argument about work and rewards. Any party that removes a means test has to answer the question of where the money comes from, and the Conservatives have picked an unusual funding line in arm’s-length quangos rather than a tax rise. Expect both Labour and Reform UK to attack the £1.6bn savings figure as optimistic, and expect the cost of childcare to feature heavily in the arguments over the triple lock and household spending in the coming Budget.
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What happens next
Griffith is due to deliver his conference speech on Monday, where the childcare pledge is expected to be one of the headline announcements. The detail to watch is whether the party commits to removing the threshold completely or introduces a replacement taper. Outside the conference, the argument will move to costing, where the party will have to defend the quango savings in detail. Labour’s own position on the threshold has been shaped by its own spending review, and Reform UK has built much of its support on promises about work and family costs.
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