The Conservatives said they would remove the £100,000 annual earnings threshold that disqualifies parents in England from government-funded and tax-free childcare, announcing the plan as party members gathered for the annual conference in Birmingham. Under the current system, only families in which no parent earns more than £100,000 are eligible for the support.
UK Conservatives pledge to scrap £100,000 childcare earnings threshold
The Conservatives said they would remove the £100,000 annual earnings threshold that disqualifies parents in England from government-funded and tax-free childcare, announcing the plan as party members gathered for the annual conference in Birmingham. Under the current system, only families in which no parent earns more than £100,000 are eligible for the support.
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, but to qualify both parents must earn less than £100,000 a year. The same threshold applies to the government's tax-free childcare scheme, under which the government adds £2 for every £8 paid into an online childcare account, up to £2,000 per child per year, which parents can use to pay for childcare.
The party said removing the threshold would be a "first step" in broader efforts to address issues in the tax system that it says damage incentives to work or invest, and said this would be a theme of shadow chancellor Andrew Griffith's conference speech on Monday. In a statement, Griffith said: "Removing this childcare cliff edge is the first step in our mission to deliver lower, simpler, and fairer taxes across the board."
The party said the policy would be funded by cutting the number of public servants working in "executive non-departmental public bodies" — organisations with a role in the processes of national government that operate at arm's length from ministers, such as Arts Council England and the Environment Agency. It said this would save £1.6bn by 2029-30, covering the estimated £700 million cost of removing the childcare "cliff edge".
The Conservatives argue the threshold may lead some people to delay having children until their incomes change, or to decide not to start a family at all, describing scrapping it as "both pro-family and pro-growth". They said the move would provide an increased incentive to work and so boost economic growth, and would tackle the "unfairness" that the threshold is calculated on an individual earner's income rather than for the whole household.
Badenoch arrived in Birmingham on Saturday ahead of the annual conference and said the party was new and different from the one that lost the 2024 general election. The party, which is currently polling behind Labour and Reform UK, is expected to use the event to lay out more of its growing policy agenda ahead of the next general election.
- The source does not name the economists who criticised the threshold or state where their criticism was published.
- The source does not state how the £1.6bn saving by 2029-30 was calculated, nor how many public bodies or posts would be cut.
- The source does not state whether the policy would apply in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, where the 30-hour entitlement it describes does not apply.
- The source does not include any response from the Labour government or from other parties to the proposal.
- The source does not state the date of the next general election or when the change would take effect.