To think abolishing private schools would cost the tax payer a lot of money?!

[bumblybum]

I am not against the idea at all but there's a few things I don't understand.

How do the dc currently in private schools fit into schools in areas where all the schools are already full?
Would private schools be open to foreign dc only seeing as a lot of students at the private schools are not from the U.K. and use private schools because their company often pays for their fees or would foreign dc also be forced into state schools?
What about boarding schools for forces parents? Are there enough state boarding schools?

Do grammar schools also need deconstructing as well in order for all education to be 'fair'? I live in a grammar area and you can forget buying a house in one of the school catchment areas unless you're already a lot wealthier. Is that not a similar problem? One school has 2% of pupils eligible for pupil premium for example.

Just wondering how it would work. Do state teachers want this to happen? Many move over to private schools so I suppose if many private schools shut down it would stop some choice in where to work.

Would state schools attempt to reach the standard of facilities that private schools have or would we accept that it is better that all British dc have the 'same' even if it's worse vs some having better facilities simply down to money.
Just Monday morning day dreaming about this really!

I don’t think the Government (Tory or Labour) will abolish private schools. Mainly because it’s too difficult.

Maybe they Labour will do it by attrition (though as a pp said, they would need to be in power for quite a few years to achieve it).
In the former East Germany, the government didn’t like its citizens owning valuable works of art so if they got to hear of such a thing, rather than just seizing it as the Nazis had done, they sent its owner such a huge tax bill that they were obliged to sell the work of art to pay the tax.
So first charitable status will be abolished and VAT charged.
Then maybe some health and safety ruling which would affect boarding schools. Then they’ll bring in some new law such as hefty taxes being charged on school fees and so on until such institutions can no longer continue.

Andante57

thats certainly within realms of possibility

hmrc sends senior doctors enormous tax bills so they all have reduce their nhs hours as they can’t afford bills that amount to more than half their take home pay

it’s a good way of the government to do away with nhs services

They are not businesses. There are no shareholders, no profits. They're no more or less a business than schools in the state sector. They provide a service and somebody pays, the only difference is who pays.

Fascinating @oldwhyno. It reminds me of the police who swear blind they are banned from joining a union, which they are, so insist they aren't members of a trade union.

Police officers get very annoyed if you raise the suggestion that the Police Federation which represents the rank and file officer is a union.

Consider the evidence, as the police say. It has a formal structure with subscriptions and elections with high profile activists, regular meetings, and an annual conference to which they invite the Home Secretary of the day no less.

Nevertheless they insist it's not a union but a club with deals on insurance, cinema tickets and a newsletter.

It's a union in all but name, isn't it? Just like private schools pretending they are not businesses. A business does not have to make a profit or have shareholders. It does have to file a tax return every year though.

I think unions are an excellent idea. I've been a member of mine since 1984. If I wanted to send my child to private school I could have done. It's a free country. But let's be grown ups about this. If it walks like a duck...you know the rest.

@Another76543 "The government is not giving money to private schools, it is just not charging additional tax on top of fees".

I pointed out further up the thread that private schools receive (not insignificant) donations from their rich alumni (eg Rishi Sunak to Winchester College). If the donation is from a taxpayer and it is to a charity, then gift aid can be claimed and the government gives a further 25% to the private school.

Private school customers are really getting in a flap about losing their fake charity status! If you end up paying more speak to your school - they're a business and you're a customer!
No-one is abolishing your schools... we're just not going to sub them anymore with unwarranted tax breaks.

A deft opening post followed by some specious statements.

‘Deft’ or ‘daft’, JohnStuartMill?

If fees go up, my DD will be one of those forced out as I can't absorb increases. I'd wager a large number of the children in her year would be too. This notion everyone is super rich is so off base it's unbelievable. I can think of one child only in her year whose parents don't make real sacrifices to send their child to the school. Personally I make huge sacrifices rather than send her to the local state where children are regularly attacked and virtually none pass their GCSE. They only offer a handful of A levels because most kids leave at 16. DD is able and consistently scores in the top 5-10% of the country in aptitude tests. Why should she be denied the possibility of gaining proper qualifications & be subjected to anti-social behavior, violence and bullying just because the area we live in is so dire?

If the school is no longer a charity, the foster children on full bursary's won't be supported any more. Such a shame to take away the opportunity of a decent education from children who need it so much and have already suffered. Also a shame the local state schools won't be able to use the sports and science facilities, nor benefit from all the work the school does to support learning and resources in these schools. Not sure what will happen to the forces children either, or those from army families on full bursary due to parents lost in combat. Hopefully this is a worthy price for everyone to feel the ''rich got screwed''...

the ''tax bills'' HRMC send to the doctors you're referring to relates to the doctors pension contributions.

Pension contributions are paid pre-tax you see and reduce the doctors overall tax liability hence they will often opt to put lots into their pension.Everyone has an annual allowance they can put into a pension tax free. Once this exceeds £40,000 (threshold for 22/23 tax free) any additional funds ar taxable. The annual allowance reduces for ''high earners'' who earn over £200,000 a year. These rules apply o anyone who puts more than £40,000 into their pension per year or who earns > £200,000 not just doctors. There just happen to be a lot of them who earn enough to be able to do so.. and they don't want to pay the tax...

I'm not sure this is anyway the same thing. For one, it's conflating personal tax liability with the tax liability of a business.

The amount you put in an NHS pension is fixed and salary based. Most senior Drs are paying 12.5-14.5 % of their salary per year plus employer contributions. Many people don't contribute anywhere near this amount of their salary on pensions. You can't reduce the amount you put in. You're either in or out.

Pinkyxx

You are wrong. It’s a fixed system and the tax bills are based on the artificial way it is assessed year on year.
No choice.

I can't for the life of me understand what's fair about making all education this grey gloopy blob of apathy and just good enough.

People are mad to think education would suddenly get better with no alternative to comps.

Comps should be the bright beacons... they should be the argument to close down other schools because they are so brilliant.
Instead we have this nonsense about how they would be better without private school existing??
Absolute rubbish.

We need more variety of school not less.

We need to overhaul education and make Sen knowledge a huge part of the pgce and arm teacher with knowledge and tips for Sen and strategies. senco need to get properly trained!

Phonics should be dropped immediately for DC who don't get it and aren't reading with it.

We can't allow such high number of children leave primary without reading.

Maths should be taught to basic level and those that struggling get the 4 basics, eg.all.tables, basics of %, ratios,adding/subtraction then proper budgeting.

Creative subject,manual stuff like plumbing given more floor space.
From earlier on.

Those tweaks would start to build foundation to eventually have better comps.

Nothing to do with private or grammar.

Welcome to defined benefit pension plans. This is how they work, and the reward is you get a guaranteed pension upon retirement (something most would not complain about). Opting out is an option, but in turn you become a deferred participant in the plan which among other things reduces the final pension received by the individual.

These are also highly regulated plans, whereby the funding ratio is off the scale compared to most pensions. These pensions are so eyewateringly expensive to fund that almost every UK employer offering them closed their plans many years ago, following years of increasingly employee contributions. In doing so many billions were saved by each and every employer. Off the top of my head I cannot think of any UK employer who would have had a workforce anywhere near the size of the NHS. The NHS continues to maintain the one made available to NHS employees (at tax payer expense).

I work with these plans.. I know the terms..

The tax applicable on contributions over the annual allowance is entirely separate, and defined by UK tax law. Applies to anyone with a pension who contributes > 40K per year.

One interesting q on this I don’t see being asked is will parents with high paying jobs work less. There are some parents who work specifically to pay the fees, if they couldn’t buy this they might choose not to work. It would be interesting to factor this into calculations on whether it would bring in tax revenue overall.

@LauraIAm they might do or they might work the same hours and spend their money on something else in the UK economy or in others.

It's like when chancellors cut income tax in order to allow people to choose where to spend their own money. It's exciting wondering what people will do and where that money will end up and of course it's always their choice to do what they please.

In 2010 when the Tory/LibDem coalition government came in and the Lib Dems dropped their much vaunted opposition to raising university fees a friend said he was delighted.

I think it was about £9,000 a year to send a child to university, I didn't have a child at university so I can't remember the exact figure, and he had three teenagers lined up to go from public schools costing him around £30,000 a year each at the time. He was looking forward to having all that extra money to spend. He never complained though which is why I liked him even though I was much poorer than him. Those schools now charge fees of about £40,000 a year.

He did carry on working but as you can tell he and his family weren't living hand-to-mouth and there were many parents like him. That's the gamble and though it might not pay off but I think we should never be afraid to try.