To support Kier Starmer’s school policy even though I would usually vote Blue…

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www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/keir-starmer-vows-tax-private-25072816

(Original article I read was on the BBC but they seem to have merged it in to another about general tax policy now)

I haven’t voted Labour at any point during my working life and in general am in favour of a meritocracy, free market, and low regulation

However this policy has touched a nerve, in a good way. I think it’s astounding private schools remain ‘charities’ and don’t pay tax. If parents can afford to send their children to private school, I’ve no real issue with it, but let them pay an additional 20% to properly contribute in line with their privilege.

Of course there is the counter argument that private school families already pay tax and therefore are funding schooling their own kids aren’t using.

But still, on balance I’m supportive.

What does everyone think?

@OhWhyNot

Reading some of these replies just shows out out of touch some people are

And why so many children who go through the private school system become so entitled

It’s a privilege, tighten your belt a bit more and you will find the money

Others are having to to feed their children and heat their homes ffs

I think comments like yours show that you are also out of touch. You don’t understand that the vast majority of families sending children to most private schools are not fabulously wealthy.

How can anyone logically think that it’s impossible for a less well off family to find an extra £5 a month for something, and simultaneously think that a family who are already paying private school fees can automatically just tighten their belt and find an extra £500 a month with no worries?

It just is not a logical thing to think. You are working on the basis that anyone who sends their children to private school has unlimited money, but they just don’t. Why is that so hard to imagine?

@StatisticallyChallenged one might say that nurseries are an essential service which allows parents to work.

Private schools are a ‘non essential luxury upgrade’ in my view and should be taxed accordingly

[quote Blankspace4]@StatisticallyChallenged one might say that nurseries are an essential service which allows parents to work.

Private schools are a ‘non essential luxury upgrade’ in my view and should be taxed accordingly[/quote]
Or you could think logically that nursery is actually the “non-essential luxury.”

After all, you do have to send your children to school, but sending your children to nursery is a personal choice.

(Just playing Devil’s advocate)

Technically you don’t have to send your child to a school. You can home school.

However, surely it’s easy to see how a private school is a paid upgrade and a nursery provides essential care allowing both parents to work?

My ds goes to private school

I hear endlessly how much so many of the parents struggle

It’s bollocks you can find £2500/£1000/£500 a month the extra will be found

Why because most will be able to and if they absolutely can’t the schools will provide assistance they are businesses

To be able to spend that much is just incredibly privilege let’s do away with the pleading poverty to oretend it’s not is sickening

And to not understand that some really can’t afford to loose a few pounds a month and compare yourself in anyway when you spend thousands a year on education is stupidly ridiculous

I'm not sure there is much between the two parties on education any longer tbh. It's all "mandatory" this and "compulsory" that and nanny knows best from both parties.

On balance, if the state is going to become bigger and more influential in our lives then it would probably be better if it was a state "for the many".

I can see people voting Labour next time just because they want a change tbh. So far all this government have offered the average family is a higher national insurance bill and apparently we have the joys of higher student loan payments, higher school fees and higher retirement ages coming along too. The choices only ever become more narrow.

Yet, the one thing that would actually help all families - solving the housing crisis - rumbles on with not even a suspicion of a solution in sight.

@Blankspace4

Technically you don’t have to send your child to a school. You can home school.

However, surely it’s easy to see how a private school is a paid upgrade and a nursery provides essential care allowing both parents to work?

Where do you draw that line though?

• cheap basic nursery for a working parent is essential?
• what about a nursery that's part of a private school?
• or a sahp who sends their kid to nursery a couple of days a week?
• fancy private nursery which has lots of extras - language classes, etc?

Where's the line between essential and luxury upgrade? There's state pre school provision after all so surely private nurseries for 2/3+ are a luxury upgrade, along with any nursery hours for younger children for anyone who isn't at work.

I took my kid out of state school due to bullying, btw - less of a "luxury upgrade" more of a prevention of harm measure. That included an incident where another kid was able to burn mine in the classroom and the teacher didn't even notice. Local schools were all full to bursting. I know others who have moved their kids because the state system was ignoring their ASN and who are really stretching themselves to do so.

I'd reckon in our area that 23% balancing point for reduction in attendance would happen easily with VAT on fees. Might take a few years to work through fully (as people would probably financially exhaust themselves to try and keep children in, especially older kids) but the new intakes would get smaller and smaller, plus some schools would fold. There would very quickly be no benefit to the country economically, and around here quality of state education would probably suffer because the council move at the speed of a glacier and would probably take decades to create the extra spaces which would be needed. We've had kids being taught in corridors here before (I'm honestly not joking) so I don't have much faith in their ability to address the capacity issues before it has a detrimental effect on education.

The private school parents around here typically live in affordable areas, often work extra shifts, and I think do notice the cost of fees. Many are first generation at private school, some moved after local state schools let them down.

The house prices near popular state schools on the other hand, are pricing people out of their own neighbourhood and out of reach for the majority. There are people spending hundreds of thousands of pounds to move to these areas, and you'd need to be wealthier to attend those state schools than the comparable private school.

Making the cost of private school higher really would leave it as an elite option, and take away an alrernative option.

My neices and nephews went to state nurseries though. DD and DS went to private nurseries, mainly because the wrap around care was better and we work odd hours - but we didn't HAVE to send them privately it was choice. Stick 20% on private nursery fees and see how people feel about that.

@Blankspace4

Books are VAT free - do you think Vat should be payable on them? After all we have libraries so purchasing books could be seen as a luxury.

It's one of those populist policies that sound great to the general public but don't make financial sense.

Cutting tax breaks etc for private schools will push up fees. Most private schools are not filled with the children of super-rich parents, they are filled with children whose parents make sacrifices in other areas. I never had a foreign holiday growing up, for example, because my parents thought giving me a decent education was more important. It will be no easier for these parents to find a few extra grand than it is for a UC recipient to find the extra £20 a week they'll not be getting.

This means middle class parents will be forced to take their children out of private education, which will cost the taxpayer a lot more than will be gained.

Many private schools will be forced to shut, but their facilities won't magically be transferred to the state sector. Their playing fields will be sold off for housing and their sports halls demolised for redevelopment.

It's strange how Labour, supposedly the party for the ordinary person, seems unable to grasp the simple fact they should TAX THE RICH. Not the middle-income earner, not the lower-income earner.

@OhWhyNot thank you for being honest.

It makes my blood boil when people who are paying for their children to be in private schools talk about "struggling". If you have 2 children in private schools, assuming no bursaries, then your income has to be at least £120,000, possibly more.

I went to a private school, on a scholarship which paid half my fees. I spent several years thinking I was poor because we had camping holidays and I didn't have a pony (!). Looking back, my parents were pretty well off, not loaded but certainly not struggling to pay fees. My sister didn't get a scholarship and they paid full fees for her.

I have several friends with children in private schools, none of them would struggle if the fees went up by 20%. Obviously they wouldn't like it, but they wouldn't pull their children out because of money issues.

In my private school we would lose a lot of pupils if we had to increase fees by 20%. Enough that we would probably have to close. Not particularly a problem for me as I would get another job (I teach a shortage subject). However, how would it improve state schools? I moved out of teaching in the state sector because I constantly felt like I was failing my students - too many kids and not enough time to give each of them the help they need. State schools need substantially more money, to employ more teachers, so each child gets the education they deserve. Charging VAT on private schools makes a good soundbite but I don't believe it would actually improve anything for the majority of kids.

The thing is if you do it overnight it is really unfair on children settled in independent schools and their parents, the vast majority of which are the squeezed middle anyway. The bankers in London won’t care and the very well known schools will set up in other countries, there is already a significant flight away from the UK in the highly privileged circles towards eg US universities. Swiss boarding schools will be happy and more will
open up… Our UK universities are going to struggle too and increasingly foreign students won’t come anymore either. British education is seen as a worldwide “brand”- the way U.K. is heading that won’t in the short run be the case anymore.
I am all for social changes to make the U.K. more equal post Brexit I just don’t think
Children should be further victims in this. They have suffered enough during the pandemic and most kids in independent schools are just that, normal children.

Please visit my part of London OP where fees for London Day Schools are 7k upwards per term. In one of the schools we used, 25% of students are on partial or full bursaries and this is where a large part of profits go.

Please tell me, for the vast majority of independent school parents who struggle to pay school fees as it is - when these parents are squeezed out and the schools become the preserve of Uber-rich oligarchs - where does Mr Starmer plan to build these additional schools for the hundreds of thousands extra students that will need state school places?

Ever tried getting a state school place in certain parts of London? It’s all at breaking point as it is. If you add half of the independent school cohort into the mix each cycle - well good luck with that!

I hope he knows where the extra funding will come from to build and find all the new state schools.

Perhaps he’s planning to bus thousands out into Surrey and beyond every day. I’m sure they’ll be delighted.

the vast majority of which are the squeezed middle anyway

People who send their DC to private school are by no means the "middle" income or expenditure. Many will have to budget carefully and/or forgo other luxuries, and may be worried about rising food / utilities costs and NI. But they aren't the middle.

@ChloeCrocodile

the vast majority of which are the squeezed middle anyway

People who send their DC to private school are by no means the "middle" income or expenditure. Many will have to budget carefully and/or forgo other luxuries, and may be worried about rising food / utilities costs and NI. But they aren't the middle.

One of the definitions of "middle income" (OECD) is from 75-200% of the household median income. UK household median is around £30k, but that is a disposable income number (so after taxes, NI etc). So 200% of £30k gives you £60k after tax, which could be a household income of more like £80k as an upper bound on "middle income households".

There are plenty who use private schools and meet that; I know one of our local schools (the only one which is open about the numbers) only offers means tested bursaries to household incomes under 60k which suggests they think those above can manage. .

The point about forgoing other expenditure is one I'd missed when I was working out the tipping point for it to be an unprofitable tax. I assumed the VAT income was all new - but of course it wouldn't be, as many of those who continued with school fees would be managing the costs by spending less elsewhere, most likely by spending less on other VAT earning goods and services. Once you take that in to account you are over 80% ongoing retention required to make the numbers stack up.

I honestly don't think that would be the case in the long term. People removing children, people not sending children at all, people sending children later so there are fewer years fee income, international pupils going elsewhere, some (mostly smaller) schools closing. I could very easily see those factors taking a chunk that is bigger than 20% out of the sector overall after a few years.

Scotland forging ahead of the rest of UK on this.
www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/private-schools-scotland-set-lose-25686958

What is happening with teacher pensions in the private sector?