To ask if anyone is clued up on the challenge this week to VAT on school fees?

Move because we can't afford it. If 10% leave the net income from VAT will be £0
If 6% leave it will cost state £375,000,000 to educate them each year

It’s kind of interesting that neither the IFS nor the OBR pointed to the legal risk which was blatantly obvious all along.

There is a third option @BotanicalGreen - fight for your rights.

But how many will actually move? Will yours be moving or will you just pay up?

There are very wealthy schools in other parts of the UK too. It is definitely not exclusive to the south East. Repton? Fettes? I could go on.

Wish I could believe that but Phillipson et al have always hated indy schools. This is pure revenge

“I get the ideology behind the policy but ultimately it is not going to generate the income they think it will and children are going to be negatively impacted. The fact they won’t delay until the new school year or phase in the policy gradually speaks volumes.”

Does it tell us the Cabinet never wanted this to work, knew it would fail and it’s just putting a Labour Party own issue to bed once and for all?

Actually it isn't bullshit but there you go

Also - many parents have already been told there isn’t a state school place for them. 10.000 kids less than normal started private school in September. Some of this down to falling birth rates but not all of it.

You realise every child that moves from Indy to state costs the taxpayer £7-8K per year. Each child that makes the move spreads the budget thinner as there is no extra income, they just add to the burden to taxpayers.
Indy schools save the state £4 billion per year.

The ISC website states “A third of pupils receive help with their fees, with a value of over £1.2 billion per year.”

The Labour Government have decided to attack the private education sector and potentially limit the bursaries of the future. I would fully expect the schools with charitable status to stand up for their rights and protect their future bursaries and children with SEND. To not do so, would not be helping the smaller schools in the sector. They are doing the right thing. The smaller schools and individual children with SEND from poorer families cannot afford the legal fees so it is good they are doing this as a joint effort. What would be wrong is just to pass the buck off to richer parents and not put up a fight on behalf of all the smaller and financially weaker schools. Good on them. I hope they win.

It was Bridget Phillipson’s choice to not engage with the sector and all the small schools full of children with SEND. If it ends up costing her dearly, that was her choice all along. Given her stellar education, I am sure she knows what she is doing.

‘Actually over 20 years fees have risen pretty much in line with state teacher salaries and as 75% of cost is salary + pensions then that's why.’

Actually that’s absolute bullshit and everyone knows it - do you know how many private schools are pulling out of the teachers scheme to screw their staff over?
Tell your though, if teachers have been getting6/7/8% annual pay rises for 20 years I’m going to retrain!

With regards the cost - it’s a culmination of hundreds of schools pooling resources to pay for it. These schools are fighting for survival. Of course they are going to go for the best legal representation they can afford.
I get the ideology behind the policy but ultimately it is not going to generate the income they think it will and children are going to be negatively impacted. The fact they won’t delay until the new school year or phase in the policy gradually speaks volumes.

Showing your prejudice there with the Monty + Tilly comment. Is it OK for me to call all kids in state school by 2 chav names? No, thought not!

And of course - there’s always the obvious. Children aren’t being denied anything. There are free ( or already paid for in your tax) places of education for all the little Montys and Tillys who’s parents don’t want to be priced gauged anymore by these businesses.

Actually over 20 years fees have risen pretty much in line with state teacher salaries and as 75% of cost is salary + pensions then that's why.

@BotanicalGreen no I was referring to another poster who was making the incorrect generalized assumption that "these schools are all absolutely minted.". I have not denied those schools exist but they do not represent the majority. The SE is only one part of England. There are many many others who could not be further from minted and that is my personal experience whether you like it or not.

Interested to see who the government appoint against Pannick.
Presumably someone who’ll
take private schools to task on the annual well above inflation fee increases they’ve imposed on their customers for decades, shine a light on exactly what goes on in religious schools, gives accurate figures on how much fees actually cost, how much schools do or don’t do to warrant charity status, how much they spend on building projects and ‘status’ facilities as opposed to things that genuinely benefit pupils, how they protect their brands by sweeping any scandals under the carpet… and on and on.

It’s all going to come out in court and it’ll be fascinating…

Ok thanks, @Mrsbabbecho, definitely would be very interesting to see the what they're using to support that line of argument, but I'd still be doubtful that they'll get far.

Ignoring any Art 14 discrimination it's not entirely clear that VAT interferes with the Art 2 right to plurality of education. The schools would have to show that the VAT imposition curtails the right to such an extent as to "impair its very essence and deprive it of its effectiveness". Given that schooling is still available, just 20% more expensive, I can't see that working out.

But even if they can show an Art 2 interference it's a qualified right and I think the government won't have too much trouble in establishing a legitimate aim (again given the wide margin of appreciation here).

Will you please stop referring to clueless assumptions (presumably mine!). I was stating what is the reality in the big name schools I know (personally) in London and the South East. Just because that reality is different from what you know in a more rural area does not mean that it does not exist. And for anyone who thinks that state schools are just as well equipped, I suggest you look at the websites of schools. Just a random example, not one of the big hitters, this is Cranleigh in Surrey's website "Alongside our 10 grass pitches for rugby, cricket and football, we benefit from the Woodland Fitness Centre which houses Strength and Conditioning, Trevor Abbot Sports Centre, 25-metre swimming pool, nine-hole golf course, equestrian centre, 13 cricket nets and an outdoor bubble for winter practice, eight netball courts, squash courts, six fives courts and an outdoor education centre." These types of schools are in abundance whether you choose to believe it or not.

But schools aren't paying VAT, it is the parents who will be paying!
The cost of VAT will be 500-1000 times the cost of the legal challenge

are people really thick enough to think that the ISC aren’t funded by private schools???
it is a LOBBY group run by and funded by 7 other associations of independent schools.

Hehe @Lookslikemeemaw - Bojo only hired Pannick AFTER he realised how good he was when he fought against PM and gave them hell in the Brexit Gina Miller cases.

The Labour Party should have hired Pannick first. Conflict of interest now when you are asleep at the wheel.

www.blackstonechambers.com/barristers/lord-pannick-kc/

The 2nd part isn’t really a discrimination argument, it’s
‘the State shall respect the right of parents to ensure such education and teaching in conformity with their own religious and philosophical convictions.’
Its here where the case is very strong, I’d say it’s undeniable that this is exactly what the policy does and was designed to do,

Thanks @Mrsbabbecho . It will be interesting to see the skeleton arguments if/when they get posted, but I can't see it working out myself.

The VAT clearly discriminates on an age basis, but I think the government won't find it hard to provide an objective justification for that, especially because a wide margin of appreciation is given when the state justifies its measures on social or economic grounds: the test is whether the policy is “manifestly without reasonable foundation” which is a high threshold to meet.

I'd be doubtful that there even is discrimination, lawful or otherwise, on the second basis. Presumably VAT will be applied to fees on single-sex or religious schools just the same as to mixed and secular schools. But even ignoring that, the same high-threshold test would apply.