If you're not voting Labour because of Palestine or gender nonsense ...

[CheesyJacketPotato]

Are you really ok with having another Tory government? Because in all honesty that is what you'll get.

To the extent that the cost increases will drive thousands of children into the state system? You take a very principled line on this, but there is no way the state will be able to use the additional tax raised from the children that stay with private schools to cover for the children that will be added to the state system. It will also clobber hard working and successful families who prioritise educating their children, which unfortunately, I see as the aim of the policy to appeal to the Robin Hood element of the electorate. The additional tax raised will get squandered on consultants and other state funded indulgencies of whatever regime sits atop the pyramid at that time.

Its like the 50p tax rate. 45P counterintuitively raises more, so those that advocate 50p are really advocating a fiscal punch to the perceived rich rather than an actual fundraiser to benefit society.

The increase in fees wont lead to a mass exodus, anymore than the way above inflation increases in fees have, numbers attending private schools have gone up.

In regard to the 50p rate, why not make it 40p or 30 or 20p? surely your argument would mean we'd collect even more? or is 45p the magic number?

Fullfact added quite a caveat to this reduction raising more money... it didn't in itself.
https://fullfact.org/economy/did-cutting-50p-rate-tax-raise-8-billion/#:~:text=Our%20verdict,from%20the%20lower%20tax%20rate.

@Everanewbie I will be surprised if the policy will significantly impact the numbers using private schools. I also question the characterisation of private school users as uniquely "hard working and successful" families"!

I repeat. Giving a benefit intended for organisations with a charitable function to organisations that don't have such a function is completely unacceptable.

@jasflowers parties don’t disagree that women need access to safe maternity care

They do disagree on men being in those, plus any other safe spaces

@CurlewKate You would instead call the typical customers of public schools what? People have this image of public schools that are based on Eton, Harrow, Winchester, and picture Jacob Rees Mogg and mega- wealthy families with generational wealth. The families that I know that currently have, or previously had children at public schools are professional and hard working people where both spouses work, and the income associated with their level of qualifications, innovation within their sector and personal sacrifice is committed towards educating their children instead of better cars, bigger houses and extravagant holidays. They have what they have through their own endevour and owe nothing to people who haven't done the same. The removal of charitable status and VAT exemption will push those who can only just afford it away, making public schools even more a preserve of the generational wealthy elite. It is anti aspirational and is a policy where we cut our noses off to spite our faces.

@ElevenSeven So they might but the Tories have had 13 years to make services safe, they are getting worse.

As far as i'm aware its the Tories that have made getting a GRC easier, which means more men in female spaces, even now, the Tories are allowing men into female prisons, so long as they haven't been convicted of a serious violent offence!
Sorry but thats bollox, if you re in prison, you have by default committed a serious offence, i doubt someone with multiple convictions for robbery are not capable of violence too.

Thankfully, Lab have rowed back on men becoming women - not before time i might add, i do share your concerns but i want my DD to have a successful child birthing experience too.

Actions speak louder than words

I won’t vote for Starmer he is untrustworthy. I don’t like their attitude to women, many of their MPs are supporting the pro-Hamas supporters who are bullying and intimidating female MPs.

i will probably vote for Reform if the Conservatives don’t get a grip.

Thankfully, Lab have rowed back on men becoming women - not before time i might add,

Have a look at Anneliese Dodds’ X account, it’s there for all to see. They’ve not rowed back on anything, and she’s supposed to be their minister for women.

Thankfully, Lab have rowed back on men becoming women - not before time i might add,

Er no. Where does this come from?

@Everanewbie "You would instead call the typical customers of public schools what?"

I would call them people who can afford to send their children to private school and choose to do so. Just as I describe myself as someone who could afford to send my children to private school and chose not to.

So many issues with that assertion. I'll start with a few.

Private school parents already subsidise state schools as they pay for places they don't use. The average saving per year to the tax payer is 7k per child. This hugely outweighs any benefit the private school tax status infers.

The bulk of the tax benefit is used for charitable purposes eg funded places for lower earners. These will all disappear overnight if the tax position changes as the other full fee paying parents understandably won't want to fund them.

If any pupils leave the private system the state will have to pick up the tab. The total raised from VAT may not even cover this meaning the average spend per state pupil will actually decrease.

Even if not a single person left state school and all remained and paid VAT the total amount raised would be around 1% of the state education budget. That would cover inflation for a couple of months and would likely result in not so much as a new pencil in most schools.

If the intention is fairness then this policy fails badly. The elite will be able to pay the VAT without issue and will continue to use the schools. The families paying fees through parents with professional jobs may be able to continue. Those who make huge sacrifices to fund it or are beneficiaries of bursaries will likely be forced back into the state system.

The end result will be an even more elitist private school sector and no discernible change to the state sector funding.

A further interesting postscript will be to see how this plays out in practice. Starmer and Labour who are so keen to align with the EU will have to introduce legislation that is illegal under EU law where VAT on education is prohibited.

He could of course still go ahead but then the question is how do you define the category of service that attracts VAT. General VAT policy states that it can only be levied on widely defined products or services eg you couldn't have VAT imposed on children's shoes but not on children's coats. The entirety of children's clothing either attracts VAT or it doesn't.

Where education is concerned this could mean that if they want to make private schools fees subject to VAT then they will also have to add it to all educational services including nursery fees, university fees, private tutors etc.

As I said it is a nonsense policy from an economic perspective but sounds good to those who don't understand the detailed ramifications of it.

Are the Cons reforming the GRC, let alone repealing it, they ve had 13 years to do so.

Yes Starmer and Reeves have both rowed back on previous statements about Trans women.
We had a thread about it recently.

I don't do X.

‘Rowed back’

What are you referring to?

I thought the Labour Party had rolled back on self ID and Starmer had said that a woman is an adult human female? Or did I dream that?

But you question my chararacterisation of the parents who's children use private schools as hard working. That is why I asked that question.

I don't object to your decision to not send your children to private schools but I do object to shifting the goalposts for parents who are close to the affordability threshold so that the decision is taken out of their hands, with the additional burden on the state system.

They will make it easier to get a GRC and despite Starmer’s updated blumpf to ‘take people with him’ (which is working it seems) it’s meaningless as a male with a GRC will be female.

And have access to female spaces

No one is born with a 'clearly defined gender'. That's because no one as yet has come up with a clear definition of exactly what gender is.

As far as even the most obfuscating academics have been able to describe it, it's a nebulous, ephemeral concept that shifts and changes according to geographical location and historical time. It's a set of regressive stereotypes which have, historically, done nothing but damage to women, men, and trans people.

How it's possible to possess a sense of such a concept as an 'innate' part of one's subjective consciousness is beyond me. Biological sex in humans is dimorphic and immutable. Gender is ... well, what is it? If Starmer is able to provided a clear answer to this terminally elusive question, then and only then would he be worth listening to. (Spoiler: he won't because he can't, because it's not possible).

Until then, as far as I'm concerned the first PP has it. He is unfit to govern.

@Everanewbie "But you question my chararacterisation of the parents who's children use private schools as hard working. That is why I asked that question."
All that using private schools says about you is that you have the money. You could have the money because you are hardworking- or not. Just as people who can't afford private school can also be hardworking.

Colin Campbell was, I think, female at birth but with malformed genitals. Such people were always raised male. As an adult, she had surgery which repaired he female genitals. I don't think she ever had reassignment surgery.

CheesyJacketPotato, at sixth form which is what I believe I said, it is 20% in private schools - that is quite a high percentage. https://guidetoindependentschools.com/key-independent-school-statistics/

So?

Or that homeless people should stop sleeping in tents 🙈🙄

Fair.

That is arrant whataboutary. Why is it impossible to sort out women’s rights at the same time as helping homeless people. In fact homeless and vulnerable women will benefit from proper single sex provision

How easy is it under the Tories? 96% applicants get a GRC, its costs £5 and the other 4% are refused because they don't fill out the paper work correctly (Gov.uk figures)
Up to the end of 2020/21, the Gender Recognition Panel had issued 6,010 full GRC s.(3 Mar 2022)

Almost 100% of men who want to be a woman can do so. If thats not self ID i don't know what is,

As i said, collapse of womens health services are vital, no good having safe spaces if you're dead, just look at what top tories during the pandemic, including Sunak were saying about allowing people, inc women, to die as a price worth paying.
Yet they said the complete opposite to the public, so why does anyone believe a word they say on females?

fwiw i don't agree with Labours approx but my vote will be decided on manifesto's and on each parties record in Govt and that is the Tories record, as no other party has been in power for the last 14 years - by the time of the next GE.