Is Bridget Phillipson's tweet accurate?

@twistyizzy and it was Labour who introduced it? Is starmer responsible for the actions of all Labour prime ministers in the past?

Who choses which state school pupils benefit? Surely the ones chosen are then given unfair advantage over those not chosen. That's against socialist principles. You can't just pick the ones going out of a hat randomly either. Because that's them being "lucky". Which is against socialist principles.

Except it was Labour that got rid of the direct grant which enabled exactly this to happen

Labour got rid of the direct grant

In the 1970s me and my sister went to a private school under the Direct Grant scheme. The Labour government paid for places at participating private schools by creaming off the highest achievers in each local authority and giving them free places at private schools. I think it was an attempt at social mobility. It didn't achieve that of course, except for the few children who benefited from it, and it took the highest achievers out of local state schools. It also meant we often had long and difficult journeys to school and, in my case, I lost touch with local friends from primary school and it was hard to manage friendships when living far away from the school location. We had no snobbish divide between the payers and non payers but we knew who we each were. It was an odd idea but, overall, I am happy I did it. I went out a couple of weeks ago with five old school friends and we are 64 now!

Congratulations? Of course higher earners should pay more tax.

Paying private school fees as opposed to paying VAT or tax on savings is pretty poor imo but that's just me.

Well that's a subjective argument isn't it? Nobody is going to win that, and thanks for the extra jeering. If you check the facts you'll find higher earners have paid a lot more tax than those eu countries people so admire and average earners pay historically low rates of tax.

But I don't think you're interested in facts.

VAT is not punitive.

It's very telling that so many rich people are anti-paying tax.

Well it'll be fine, except that many private schools such as mine make no profit. But I agree making better use of the private sector would've been a better plan than the punitive idea from the 80s we've got.

@twistyizzy my suggestion is that the private school system is used in the same way as the private healthcare system is used by the NHS.

The government tenders contracts and they pay a cheaper rate (as in what it actually costs, without all the profit margins on top) and then state school pupils are put into private schools. Most private schools have tiny class sizes so they can then increase these to make sure more pupils can benefit.

Surely that would be fine?

Sorry yes that wasn't aimed at you, my error

Astroturf is very bad for the environment whomsoever is using it!
I doubt any school about to be VATd uses embossed paper: just another dig at the perceived wealth that people have
If she said that poor people use Izal paper in their outside lavatory, there would be such a hue and cry about 'poor-bashing', yet everyone seems to think having a pop at those who are perceived to have money, is socially acceptable.
Indeed, it's a favourite sport on MN too

There's a real problem with Scottish schools too due to the different age cut off. Some pupils will end up in an exam year where before they were in the year below. BP doesn't care obviously as private Scottish school children aren't "our children" so don't count.

Think you've got the wrong end of the stick with my post. The PP was suggesting that state school pupils using private should get a "bulk discount". I suggest that state schools pupils would be getting an unfair advantage over private school that way. Which as we know is against socialist principles of "equality"

Oh you mean that every child gets an equally poor education. Because we know that it never means each child getting an amazing eduction.
There is not the money or political will to make each state school amazing so instead the plan is to pull down indy schools.
Your view usually ends up with the ruling group getting all the privilege and everyone else fighting for crumbs. See Russia/China etc. I have friends from Russia and trust me, they have seen the result of "levelling".

It’s a policy of hate. It doesn’t make financial sense and state ed won’t benefit from the tax as state school numbers will increase and state schools will lose their opportunities of using indie school facilities. After all, why should indies offer their facilities for free now? I imagine many indie parents won’t want their tax and fees subsidising state schools any further.

So the tax anticipated isn’t going to materialise - and will end up costing the government as indie pupil numbers will drop; state schools will have to absorb additional pupil and the government will have to start funding additional pupils who have migrated over to state.

I don’t think many indie teachers are going to be in a rush to return to state ed teaching (classes of 32+ with no support for SEN) and no one wants to be a teacher today so just where are the 6500 extra teachers coming from that to is VAT increase will fund?

It’s a shit policy borne out of class hatred. Rather than look at what needs to be done to improve state ed Labour have gone for, what they think of as, an easy win.

Only it’s not.

There are also a lot of parents who have wealth who don’t contribute to the state education for their child other than in their taxes (just like indie parents but of course they aren’t then taking their school place they paid for). shouldn’t they contribute more?

Maybe it’s time that parents of state school kids started to pay something by towards their education? A wealthy family on c£200k with 3 kids in state ed could surely stump up a couple of thousand pounds a year? Maybe contributions should be means tested like the WFA?

It’s a thorny issue the Labour Party has decided to address but their limited imagination and poor financial literacy means it cannot be the success they hope it will be.

That's an ideological viewpoint.

It is because some school are foolishly reported to have said that they are going to offset some of the tax by delaying upgrading their pool and other by by removing some of the touches like giving pupils logo embrossed folders rather than normal folders. It the schools really said that talk about not reading the room.

@itwasnevermine seems to think that all private school parents are very rich, and don't want their kids mixing with state school kids.
I have a friend who moved house mid year. Not a single state school within a 30 mile radius had a place for her daughter. No public transport to the nearest state school, and parents not able to drive her each day.
So she's at private school 10 mins walk from home. They can't really afford it but it was that or home schooling. Their other 2 kids got places in local state schools. They are still waiting for a state school place for her.

Is BP going to celebrate her pet policy by putting it on the side of a bus?

Oh I see.
No, state school pupils coming to private schools to assist with the strain do not get a "bulk use" discount. The tax payer needs go pay the same as all other parents. Equality, you see. No advantage for any child over the other.

I'm not using "gotchas" I'm pointing out the faults with the policy however I stand by my original stance that you should never tax education and that it is a poor look on Labour that their legacy will be the only Europeam country to do so.

Education should never have been made into a commodity that was sold to generate profit and buy opportunities, that's the end of it.

@Nordione1 the point about private schools being used by state pupils in order to ease the strain, like the NHS does with private hospitals.

You should never tax education. That's the end of it as far as I'm concerned.