Badenoch Expands Childcare for £100,000 Earners, Backs Triple Lock and 50,000 Prison Places
Updated
Updated · BBC.com · Oct 4
Badenoch Expands Childcare for £100,000 Earners, Backs Triple Lock and 50,000 Prison Places
3 articles · Updated · BBC.com · Oct 4
Summary
Kemi Badenoch said Conservatives would scrap the £100,000 childcare cutoff, arguing the change would end a "cliff edge" that discourages parents from taking promotions or staying in work.
The policy builds on her conference push to widen childcare support for higher earners, part of a broader appeal to aspirational middle-class voters as the party faces pressure from Reform UK.
Badenoch also reaffirmed the pension triple lock after Labour moved last week to change it, presenting the Conservatives as defenders of the existing guarantee.
On crime and welfare, she pledged 50,000 extra prison places to ease overcrowding and attacked what she called an "explosion" in benefit claims for low-level conditions.
Richard Tice dismissed the prison plan as fantasy and said Reform aims to win Badenoch's seat, underscoring the electoral threat on the Conservatives' right.