Badenoch Vows to End “Absurd” £100,000 Childcare Cliff Edge

Kemi Badenoch has pledged to scrap the “absurd” £100,000 earnings limit that strips parents of childcare support when a single pay rise crosses the threshold, announcing the policy on the eve of the Conservative Party conference in Birmingham.

Under current rules, families in England receive 30 hours of funded weekly childcare — available to working parents of children aged nine months to four since September 2025 — only if both parents earn under £100,000 a year. If one parent crosses the threshold, the entire entitlement disappears, along with access to the tax-free childcare scheme, under which the government tops up childcare accounts by £2 for every £8 parents pay in, up to £2,000 per child per year.

According to the Conservatives, the policy would open 30 hours of free weekly care to every parent working at least 16 hours a week, regardless of income. Party officials put the annual cost at £700 million, which they say would be funded by cutting civil-service headcount at arm’s-length public bodies such as Arts Council England and the Environment Agency — claiming savings of £1.6 billion by the end of the decade, with NHS bodies excluded.

Speaking to the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme, Badenoch said parents should never have to turn down a promotion or pay rise because they “literally cannot afford to earn more,” arguing the cliff edge punishes work and hurts women most, since childcare responsibilities still fall disproportionately on them. “What we want to see is that people who work harder don’t get punished for doing so,” she said.

A Labour Party spokesperson responded that no government had ever put so much focus or investment into the early years as the current Labour government. The announcement came as Conservative members gathered for the party’s annual conference in Birmingham, where shadow chancellor Andrew Griffith is expected to make work incentives a theme of his speech on Monday.

Sources

• Leigh Journal (PA) — Tories pledge to end £100,000 childcare ‘cliff edge’ on eve of conference
• Western Morning News — Kemi Badenoch to cut public servants to fund childcare for high earners
• Brit Brief — Tories pledge to end £100,000 childcare ‘cliff edge’