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.

Is this real? This couldn't sound more like CCHQ if it tried.

Agreed.

Where do you propose we get the funds for that?

Surely the question isn't how will they raise the money. The question is what are they doing to deserve charitable status to qualify.

If the policy raises £1 billion (conservative estimate) are those schools providing £1 billion of charitable work?

Maybe for the first time in hundreds of years we try having a smaller government. Just an idea. We don't seem to be able to afford the current set up.

Does the smaller state include removing government subsidies to private schools?

(Everyone bleating about how there would have to be thousands of extra school places knows that the school population is due to peak in 2024 and is heading into decline after that, right?)

yes, just get another job. Why don’t you earn more? Why aren’t you trying harder, OP, as the rest of us get told to do?

My mother worked 2 jobs (one during the day, another in the evening) to send me to private school. Our clothes came from charity shops and we ate very cheap food. She believed that the smaller class sizes and more individual teaching time were worth the sacrifices. It's kids in the position I was in who will lose out.

Q2C4 · Today 23:39

I thought that studies on this topic indicated that adding VAT onto school fees would cost the state more than it would generate?

What studies? Are you referring to the one that calculated that 90,000 would end up in state education? If so then the figures are not reliable. If not can you link to these studies please? Not just mentions of the figures but a way of actually understanding the way it was worked out.

^This.

"Awash with money" is not a very well-defined accounting term.

The books balancing out at zero would confirm that there are no profits, so all the money raised is being spent on providing schooling.

The idea that some capitalist fat-cat is buying a Rolls Royce with profits from a school that has charitable status makes no sense.

Did the private schools pay to qualify their teachers?

No, clearly it doesn't.

Why should the public purse be "helping" your children to have a private education? Talk about entitlement. It's not punishment to be expected to pay for your own luxuries. The rest of us - who also want the best for our children's futures and work every bit as hard as you do - shouldn't be expected to subsidise your lifestyle choices.

Q2C4

Your mother is an amazing woman!!

My experience of using private education is that I didn’t encounter a single family such as yours. We knew our entire year well and lots of families from across the school.

Children in the same situation that you were in will be tiny numbers. Certainly not 90,000 of them.

Most private schools are NOT charities so shouldn’t have charitable status and most people I know that are using private education agree.

Private schools are businesses. They are not charities. How anyone can argue with this, beggars belief.

The row about them avoiding VAT has been going on for decades. The loophole could have been closed long ago.

Typical private school myth that children are held back at state schools

This.

But it's not a widely disruptive policy. It will impact a tiny percentage of the population.🤷‍♀️

They’re a business and should be taxed as such and pay business rates.

Yup, my mum did 2 of those jobs to sent me to private school. She wouldn't have been able to fund the VAT on top so kids like me would, if labour get their way, now be excluded. The rich-poor gap will get wider and the state may well end up worse off as it will have to accommodate the pupils who can no longer afford to go private.

This!!

So many of the above posts about terrible schools explain why many parents do scrimp and save to go private.

The extra tax won't make schools better cs it's also parents who don't care about education that makes schools rubbish, as their kids view education in the same way!

Guess you never met my family then!

We pay VAT on anything not considered essential, including until very recently, sanitary products! Private school education is not essential. PSs currently have charitable status. This and the lack of VAT is a situation that exists only as a ruse because all of the establishment send their kids to PSs. Labour simply want to rectify that anomaly and I speak as someone who put my own daughter through PS with significant financial strain.

While it sounds very difficult for your Mum, you do recognise that there are other people that don't even have that option right?

The VAT from this could bring the minimum level of teaching up to a better level (e.g. ensuring everyone can read and write) which surely should be a basic essential in today's society?

If a decent chunk of the Tory voters who send their kids to private schools were priced out of the market, they'd perhaps use their votes to ensure better funding and quality in state schools. Then parents like your mum wouldn't feel the need to work all hours and scrimp and save to send their kids to private schools in the first place, because our state schools would be exceptional.

I’m really upset that there’s VAT on luxury yachts. It’s so unfair, I strive to be able to afford one, so I can free up my dinghy for poor refugees to use.

FFS OP, read the room. There’s people striving to be able to afford to feed their kids or heat their homes. Private schools should be treated as the businesses they are, not as charities.