Kier starmer! He hates strivers!

[Bucketheadbucketbum]

He wants to introduce a policy to put up the cost of school fees 10 to 15%. This is a tax on hard-working parents! We slave away cutting cots everywhere living hand to mouth to try and improve our childrens future . Live in an average house average area 1 shit car no holidays work like a dog to get our kids through. We are easing the burden on the state system by choosing independent schools. We're not sending them to Eton paid by our trust fund! Why does he want to punish strivers! Tax the energy companies! So disappointed. We need a new political party. What's the point in trying to better your future.

What is fundamentally the right thing to do is to come up with a plan to revolutionise the state sector. All Keir can come up with is using VAT from school fees to hire a few more teachers (where are they all magically going to come from, I wonder?)

I don't particularly want to have to spend lots of money sending my kids to private school but all the good schools in my area are out of my catchment. Why? That's the issue Labour needs to tackle. Make the state system so fucking good that private schools are left for the idiotically wealthy who know no different.

Everyone does those things? You think everyone pays for private tutors and lies about where they live to get into the right schools? I don’t. Most people don’t. My kids both go to their local catchment schools and don’t have tutors. That’s what most people do actually.

When it's the leader of the opposition with an incredibly easy name to spell, yes I think people (the same people who seem to think they have some marvellous policies to share with the world) should be getting it right. No wonder we ended up with Brexit, you people probably read the form wrong.

Would more state grammars really mean fewer people would go private?

I went to a state grammar school in the nineties and it suffered from exactly the same financial issues as other state schools - crumbling, leaking class rooms, sold off playing fields, freezing cold temporary huts for teaching, having to share text books, limited extra curricula activities etc..

Yes they get good academic results ... because they are brutal exam factories. Academic success and passing exams is the main focus. At my school pupils predicted anything under a C at GCSE or A level would be strongly encouraged to withdraw from those exams. We were examined in every subject at the end of every school year, fail to make the grade and conversations would be had with your parents about whether it was the best school for you. Things may have changed but It always amuses me that parents who go private always assume that a. their child would get in to a grammar school and b. it would be the right thing for them.

Don't get me wrong - going to a grammar school gave me a lot - confidence, academic success (particularly in a subject not often available to state school pupils), confidence .... but it is a fairly harsh and narrow educational environment.

Charities have to charge VAT on things they sell that aren't exempt.Businesses don't have to charge VAT on things that are exempt. VAT exemptions are based on the product or service (groceries, children's clothes, education etc.), not on who is selling it.

The tax advantage that charitable status gets you is exemption from business rates - commercial property tax in other words.

How will this work - how do you convert something that is a charity (no owners as such, no dividends - all surpluses reinvested in the education of the children) into something that isn't a charity, probably with owners and dividends. How will Starmer decide who are the individuals who are going to own these schools and potentially become millionaires overnight, just down to the value of the land the schools sit on?

Or will we end up with two tiers of charities - the "approved" which are VAT exempt, and the "unfavourable" which pay tax?

It is going to be fascinating to see how this can be unravelled.

I'm a striver and my child attends state school. Fuck off.

I do think if you’re going to put vat on the fees for independent schools then vat needs to put on fees for all educational institutions including universities. A tertiary education is also a privilege not a right🤷🏼‍♀️.

That's the issue Labour needs to tackle. Make the state system so fucking good...

This. Carrot , not stick. If state schools were universally good enough, most private schools would go bust.

Can you imagine the voter outrage? I mentioned this upthread but no-one seems to have picked up on it. I think Keir would have a different argument on his hands.

Yep. On this Blair got it right. But Starmer has it wrong. I think he lacks the same vision and ability to sell opportunity for everyone.

“Private education is. It's not as if the choice is private school or no education”

except for some of us it is. I would support the removal of all private schools but only after the state actually has provided education for all children

for some of our kids there is NO state provision. Seems a lot of posters live in some magic world where there is a state school place available for every kid

someone also mentioned nursery’s - there are NO state nurseries in the local council area in which we live. Private nursery or nothing (obviously with the funding but which a lot of the nurseries only will take 15 hours of) So I have had to pay for my child to attend nursery school.

And then to be told there is no primary school place in the local area at all. None. She did get a place at a school in another councils area a couple of miles away but because that’s “cross county border” and we are “choosing it” (spoiler we weren’t) they would not pay for transport and I couldn’t find a way to get her there and back and keep my job. Only offer was a school in the nearest city (different LA but same council so they would pay for the taxi/bus). An hour a day each way on transport age 4, no chaperone on the bus and the kids I have heard from other parents are not walked to the school from being dropped on the street or or might be a taxi, they weren’t sure, might not be the same driver each day. Weren’t allowed to visit the school due to covid. So yay hand over your 4 year old to some chap in a taxi you haven’t met to go to a school you have never seen..it’s not a choice. It seemed the council were pushing us to de register - kept on saying we could home educate or go private. Two years into private school (10min walk down the road) and she’s still on the wait list for the local state school -5min down the road, I keep on being asked if I want to take her off the list as she is in a school - I assume to make there figures look better.

I would love to choose to state educate my child. I am angry that it’s likely gonna cost more for me to pay for my child to get an education and terrified the school will fold. Why is she worth less than other kids? It’s not a privilege to HAVE to pay to educate your kids it’s a burden.

I think the issue with that is that as a society we do need people with degrees, in a way that we don't need people with a private education. There is also no state funded alternative to university. We need health care professionals, teachers, engineers, architects, etc etc. Charging VAT on fees to do a nursing degree would be taking the piss.

If you’re strivers why can’t you earn more, move house, or move abroad? They’re all options to a striver surely? If you want a state grammar move to Lincolnshire, you’ll get a three bed semi for under £200k and access to two great grammar schools, or would a striver find that too challenging?

I’m a striver, I attended state school, we could afford to send our children to private school, we have chosen not to as we don’t support private schooling.

Do people who think private schools should remain tax havens, also agree that the likes of amazon should remain tax dodgers because they also give a tiny amount of money to charities in a similar to private schools giving a tiny proportion of their earnings in bursary.

@Hobbi I'd describe working two jobs, one 9-5pm the other 6-11pm a sacrifice - a sacrifice of family and relaxation time.

This thread is so depressing. This we have 'aspiration' and are 'strivers' and 'hard workers' so we are more deserving narrative is horrible. What a horrible individual who thinks this way. Not everyone can be at the top. This all 'it's not a race to the bottom' is trotted out by people who will never be at the bottom. Someone has to be at the bottom and it's everyone's responsibility that the bottom isn't cold, hungry and misery ffs.

People have barriers to aspiration, striving and hard working. If you don't understand this and don't have the cognitive reach to see a thread like this is tone deaf then you really do need a long hard look in the mirror and ask yourself why you can't grasp your privilege. People have been living in poverty for years, not having enough for food and heating and school uniforms has been the reality for some for years, now it's the people whose private school fees are going up and it's abhorrent? Catch yourself on.

In what way are Amazon "tax dodgers?" I've never seen anything to suggest they don't pay the taxes which are legally due.

@Bucketheadbucketbum I totally agree with you.
It's the politics of envy.
It's particularly galling given the secondary education he benefited from.

This doesn’t make sense. Did you apply on time with a full set of local schools as your admissions choices?

BTW state nurseries are only free for the 15 hours too.

This^ seems very sensible to me.

@SafeMove how is it privilege to have to pay for your kids education?

I either:

1. pay
2. stop work and home educate
3. move house pretty far away -so would need to move job- would need to get new job- I’m trying

NO STATE PRIMARY PLACES IN MY LA for 20+ kids each year for the last 3 years

I still don't understand the VAT argument. If education is exempt, how can he apply it just to private schools.

And before people say 'charity', the two are separate. The charitable status allows private schools to benefit from not paying business rates. I agree that should change. But I don't understand the VAT thing. You pay VAT on items which are VAT-able (doesn't matter if you're a charity or a business) and education is VAT exempt.

Can someone please help me understand?

School fees should be taxed in exactly the same way as any other service.

If you don't like that, don't pay for private education, i wish the builders i'm using didn't charge VAT, perhaps MN would like to have a whip round????

However, its dangerous game Starmer is playing, the media will not portray this policy as "fair"

VAT could be applied on school fees, but the average cost that the state spend on each child in state school should then be a tax deductible amount for parents sending their kids to private school imo so that it increases tax collection but too many parents don't then put their child in state schools (which would not cope until they can build capacity)!

But why, if education is exempt?