To think if you can no longer afford school fees...

I've seen a lot of that on here. It's called jealousy. Plain and simple. People delighting in the misfortune of those who they believe to be well off enough to send their kids to private school. It's so mean-spirited. However, anecdotally, most of the parents I know whose kids go to private school are on very modest incomes and may now have to take their child out. So, yes, they do have my sympathies.

@TiredMumE , really you don’t care about young, vulnerable people at academically difficult points in their education being utterly uprooted from their teachers and friends?

£3000 gain to taxman, £8000 cost to taxpayer.

Private schools should be abolished.

Why?

Why don’t we abolish luxury cars, houses with more than five bedrooms, big gardens, the Royal Opera House, gin bars, Michelin starred restaurants, designer clothing and first class flights, first class train seats, luxury hotels.

Why don’t we turn the UK into a communist state?

And you think the OPs post was nasty?

I’ve always been a Labour voter, but it’s a disappointingly poor and spiteful policy designed to play to public sentiment, even if that ends up badly thought through and counterproductive. In this sense it’s just like the Tory policies like the 2-child benefit cap and the bedroom tax - counterproductive, punitive, doesn’t really raise or save any money, but instead is a bit of theatrics to play off the worst instincts of the voter base (eg. wanting to punish other sections of society rather than design real policies that make sense and work fairly).

It’s bloody obvious that it won’t hurt the comfortably wealthy or the really rich, but instead the children (not even the parents, actually), of middle-income families. It’ll put extra pressure on surrounding state schools, make small independent schools not viable (most especially those catering largely to SEN kids), and not actually raise much money. Far from “closing a tax break” (a very misleading phrase), it takes advantage of the fact that we’re now not in the EU to bring in a new tax on educational services. It involves all sorts of other implications for other forms of educational services, and paves the way for taxing those, too (why not start taxing tutoring, summer schools, music lessons, university fees, all sorts?)

What would be truly equitable and progressive is taxing the genuinely rich, corporate profits, asset-hoarding, landlords, and rentierism of all kinds, in order to improve state education. Not explicitly targeting children because you’re envious of their parents, which actually ends up falling on middle income people while the really well off are merrily unaffected.

We’re about to start paying for DD to attend a private school. We’re very definitely middle income - in fact we’ve managed for the last ten years on around £50k a year household income in the south east - not easy with recent levels of inflation. Our family income will go up next year with a new job, but we’ll be paying the exact amount of the increase back out in school fees. We can’t afford to buy a house; we still won’t be able to when our income goes up anyway (2-bed flats here, for whole counties around, are well over 500k). DD has been awarded a sizeable bursary and two academic and music scholarships to cover part of the fees. We’ve prioritised her education over things like holidays or luxuries; but we are genuinely pretty poorly off compared to lots and lots of other quite average people who own one or more properties, lead much more expensive lifestyles, drive much more expensive cars, go on holidays, and so on.

It’s going to be kids like DD who will be affected by Labour’s policy, not the children of footballers or aristos or property dealers or the comfortably off; or indeed the kids and grandkids of people who’ve made tons of unearned cash in the property bubble. Those won’t be the kids who need to move schools. So all this serves is to focus a bit of spite on those who are a little bit better off, but it won’t touch the actual rich at all: Eton and Winchester will blithely carry on. It’s a mean-spirited, counterproductive and petty policy that is, I think, emblematic of the current Labour party’s disappointing lack of vision and genuine commitment to addressing the structural inequality of our economy.

We have an economy massively distorted by a housing bubble that disincentivises productive investment; incredibly low productivity; poor wages; poor growth; a situation that encourages malinvestment, speculation and rent-seeking of all sorts. The housing bubble and Brexit have been the biggest blights on our economy that anyone could have devised. And the answer is to tax the education of a small number of kids? That’s not redistribution; that’s weak and short-sighted tinkering around the edges while leaving the real issues completely untouched. It’s pretending that all our economic ills are the fault of the slightly posher Joneses down the road; just like the Tories liked to pretend that all our money was going on all those extra bedrooms in the council houses of people only just a bit poorer than you. And, as we well know, both of those things are nonsense. I’d thought better of Labour, to be honest.

Why? Because you're jealous?

I've left the UK now, so don't have a dog in this fight (but frequently consider moving back). My job is to advise international governments on economic development issues.

I can tell you taxing private schools is monumentally stupid for the UK and merely one a series of economically illiterate policies from both the Conservatives and Labour party. Irrespective of whether this policy actually achieves the tax raising outcomes (which various UK tax experts are sceptical about) it basically makes the UK in the round less attractive for investment and contributes driving away the higher tax payers that tend to be engines of economic growth. Basically if you want your economy to grow one thing you want is lots of higher earners spending money, being innovative, paying lots of taxes and influencing corporate decision making which is favourable to their country of residence (eg they take decisions which create jobs for everyone else in the UK rather than say France or Korea). The other thing higher earners do is buy things from expensive shops, bars and restaurants - this is important because it keeps these places open (the jobs are useful too) but the reason why this is important is that it makes the UK a nice place to live and that is important because people don't create businesses in countries or places they don't want to live in. Investment and start ups are highly correlated towards places which are basically good places to live (and there are lots of sensible reasons for this).

This is a stupid policy, which is one of many which will damage UK economic growth.

I am working with several countries today that want to attract UK teachers, have more UK style private schools and private international schools and want more high quality universities. It's key to their economic growth strategies and the UK doesn't realise how important this stuff is because it had before the rest of the world.

What would have been fairer IMO is to apply it to the new school intake years only and probably from next year. Those already in the school and those who have applied already for this year made their decision on private schools based on the fees at the time and it would be unsettling for these children to change schools part way through a school. There are multiple threads on here about moving house requiring a school change and how it can impact the child depending on their age - its the same with this.

I'm not going to waste a single second of time feeling sorry for people who can no longer afford school fees.

However the sheer joy and malicious pleasure some posters are displaying is truely vile.

I judge those people very harshly.

I don't think it's fair, reasonable or kind, it certainly won't be a money generator if many students migrate to state but it will just be tough.

Unfair, unreasonable, unkind policies are dished out each and every year and having to make do is usually the outcome of it all.

Ask any disabled person paying for a spare room, or woman who aborted her, what would have been a much wanted but I'll afforded, third child, or the home where one single earner has the temerity to bring in £61k rather than a double income home with each at £49k when it comes to child benefit etc, etc.

Maybe Labour will then build more state schools if the need for places is clear ?

Will they actually need to though ? With a falling birthrate comes a reduction in the need for school places.

if more parents from private schools end up having to send their children to state schools it will improve state schools- they are often the sort of parents that will strongly push for change. my child went to state school and it was excellent - do get slightly annoyed at the assumption that only children in private schools get a good education. Like all things there is a great variety in standards. I do however disagree with private schools on principle but i also disagree with religious schools- everyone should mix together and learn to understand each other- think it would benefit society and improve social cohesion

What a mean spirited post.

Fuck how it impacts on the kids, eh? That’s tough. Rich little snots deserve it anyway, eh?

Just horrid.
Except it won’t impact the rich kids. They will still be able to go. It’s the working class kids that will have to leave. Private schools will keep running. Kids who go to private school will continue to have an advantage, except now those advantages will be just for the rich kids, like it used to be.

Have a slow clap from me.

Yeah, I imagine the halls are awash with working class kids in private schools.

Try being on the receiving end.

All I get when I say about my dd, who had to go to private school otherwise she’d not have been educated at all is tumbleweed on these threads.

I am too ill to home educate. She is now so very mentally ill due to her medical condition as she can’t cope with it. She wouldn’t have survived the state school I pulled her out of at the beginning of year 9. She’s just finished her GCSEs.

We are having to send her to her current school for A levels… if she’s well enough to go that is. I tried to get her back into mainstream but she’s too fragile. As is, I’m worried about her dying. She’s anorexic and her medical condition causes her heart to stop beating. At a certain point I fear her body may not be strong enough to restart it.

Dd’s medical condition should be automatically classed as SEN, the same as epilepsy albeit her seizures are cardiological. But they are not. They are bogusly listed by the NHS as only affecting toddlers and therefore the ignorance in the medical profession is staggering, which is why dd is so badly affected actually. A doctor told dd she should have grown out of them by now and she stopped eating as a result.

I am sick to the back teeth of these threads laughing at parents having to pay even more for the privilege of endeavouring to give their kids a ‘normal’ life.

Why is it ok to stick the boot into me but not ok to berate parents for not being able to feed their kids? Neither should be acceptable.

YANBU. I couldn't care less about this issue.

How nice, what about the children in all this?

Are you always so jealous natured?

It's a waste of emotion really, you can't achieve what they've got, so you'll never have it. So why worry about it?

You'll care when doctors leave the country or quit their job. They're already pissed off at their pay and conditions, now you 'couldn't care less' that they have to pay thousands of pounds extra tax to get their children educated to a similar standard they needed to get into healthcare. At some point they're going to decide that they 'couldn't care less' about you.

Higher earners aren’t going to give a shit about paying VAT on private education and those that are allegedly on the breadline and the ones who will be leaving in their droves will spend all this spare cash from private education on other items with VAT. Being a good place to live doesn’t hinge on private education for a few.

So sad that in the UK we mock are look down on successful people who enjoy the fruits of their work.

Like you said tough luck. It’s not my problem those parents didn’t work hard enough to be able to provide enough stability for basic life needs. It works both ways.

I feel so sorry for all the parents that have made sacrifices to try and give their children a better life.

The vast majority of parents with children who have MH difficulties and SENs have to use the state education and do. I’m sorry your child is ill, (mine is too) but private education isn’t a right. It causes wide spread inequalities and only the very rich can afford it. If you’re not very rich and will now need to join the vast majority who can’t afford it I’m sorry but that isn’t the job of the state or posters to worry about.In exactly the same way those who took a risk and could afford it without VAT didn’t really care about those out of the privileged 6%. It’s hard but coping with MH and SEN in the state sector is actually the reality of 96% of the country.

Ok well they can pay their VAT then and if they can’t they will have to join the un”successful” 94% who work hard and who can in no way afford private education.