The UK’s Conservative Party has announced a pledge to fully restore child benefit payments for households with an income up to £120,000 if they win the

election on July 4. This policy change aims to assist 700,000 families and is framed as a tax cut worth an average of £1,500 for those affected.

Currently trailing Labour by around 20 points in opinion polls, the Conservatives are emphasizing tax in the election debate. During a televised debate, Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak claimed that Labour would increase taxes by £2,000 for each family, a statement Labour has called false.

Child benefit, currently valued at £25.60 per week for the first child and £16.95 for each additional child, begins to be reduced through a tax charge for families where one parent earns over £60,000. The proposed policy would double this threshold and consider total household income instead of individual earnings, aiming to remove a penalty on single parents and households where one parent earns significantly more than the other.

The Conservatives estimate the policy change would cost £1.3 billion in 2029/30, funded by cracking down on tax avoidance. It was the Conservatives, under then-Prime Minister David Cameron, who initially withdrew the benefit from higher rate taxpayers in 2013.

Labour criticized the announcement, labeling it another one of Sunak’s "desperate and unfunded policies" that are unlikely to be implemented. A Labour spokesperson remarked, "Rishi Sunak clearly wants to pretend the last 14 years didn’t happen, because almost all his policies reverse decisions his own party has taken." Photo by Chris McAndrew, Wikimedia commons.