What the Conservatives would change

Set out ahead of the party's annual conference, the plan is valued by the Conservatives at about £700m a year. The party says it would end the "cliff edge" that strips families of free childcare once a salary passes £100,000.

• •The £100,000 limit would be abolished, so every parent who works 16 or more hours a week could claim the free childcare
• •Funding would come from cutting jobs at organisations including Arts Council England and the Environment Agency

How the current 30-hour entitlement works

The system was introduced under Rishi Sunak's government. Families with young children in England qualify for 30 hours of free childcare a week. The entitlement stops once one parent earns more than £100,000, irrespective of the other parent's salary.

Badenoch's case and Labour's reply

Badenoch called the current system "absurd" and a disincentive to working more, arguing that parents should not face a penalty for earning more and that the cliff edge creates exactly that penalty. As a mother of three, she said she has had to make the same choices many families face on work and childcare, and that government should not make those choices harder. No one, she argued, should have to turn down a promotion or a pay rise because they cannot afford to earn more.

Women often end up carrying more of the childcare responsibility, she said, so a system that makes it harder for them to progress helps neither families, women nor the economy. A Labour spokesperson replied that it was telling the first Conservative tax policy the party wants to unpick is one helping higher earners, and that the Conservatives did not want to admit they had set the thresholds themselves.

Stamp duty and prisons complete the pre-conference pitch

The childcare plan followed Badenoch's proposal, unveiled at last year's conference, to abolish stamp duty on people's primary residences in England and Northern Ireland - a plan estimated to cost £9bn a year. Some economists argue stamp duty weighs on the housing market and the economy by discouraging people from moving, but scrapping it rather than reforming the tax would disproportionately benefit better-off people and those in London and south-east England.

• •The party also plans 50,000 new prison spaces in England and Wales, a 50% expansion in capacity
• •That would be paid for partly by cutting overseas aid to £1bn a year, a 90% cut on current plans
• •Labour, under Keir Starmer, has said it would reduce aid from 0.5% of GDP to 0.3% by 2027, which would still amount to £9bn a year
• •When Reform UK announced its own £1bn-a-year aid plan, aid groups warned it would not cover contributions to global bodies such as the UN and World Bank and would shred Britain's international influence

The childcare proposal was published the day before the Conservative conference begins in Birmingham.