School fees have risen by 19% in the space of 12 months

[Findingfactsaboutfees]

AIBU to think this is outrageous ?! Fees are exorbitant anyhow and in the last 12 months we have had an increase of 19% by way of 2 increases in a 12 month period. Fees per year for the senior school are £16690 per year and do not include state of the art facilities as other local schools do. The junior school fees aren't much less either! This is a school in the north of England. If you are paying for education, where are you based and how much do you pay? I wonder whether it is comparable.

Private education will only be for the ultra-rich if fees continue to rise at the rate that they are. It is unsustainable for most working professionals who are comfortable but not ultra-wealthy! Parents locally have tried to take their children out but can't as there are no state school places to be had within a 12 mile radius. The only other option is home schooling which isn't possible when the parents are working full time. We're not yet at the point where we are thinking of taking our child out of school but hearing the plight of those who are in the process of trying to is worrying. I've always been a labour voter but if they do go ahead with the introduction of VAT, I fear it's going to get even worse.

In Finland, every single person pays tax.

There is no £12.57k tax free amount. Everybody pays income tax.

So, are the lower earners prepared to pay more tax in the UK?

I predict crickets

"You are demanding a further pound of flesh while you pay even less in."

No, people are asking that tax breaks not be applied to a service which is not a charity and is a luxury good that is used almost exclusively by the very highest earning households ( and wealthiest households) but which gets tax breaks which do not apply to the insititions that the majority send their children to. Its fine to pay tax on this, its fine to pay tax on any luxury good. You just haven't until now and are (poorly) trying to defend that priviliege.

EPQs are up to half an A level. Not a full A level.

"EPQs are up to half an A level. Not a full A level."

She said A Level qualification, which it is, not an A level.

Private education is not a luxury good.

Seriously. Your POV on this is just wrong.

For the majority of people on here who have children in state schools - this is why school budgets are screwed and most teachers are striking.

Private schools have passed costs on, state schools can’t so everything has been cut to the bones: teacher pay rises, supplier increases via inflation and energy costs have not been funded by the government. They are being supplemented by existing budgets via money that should be ring fenced for resources (including more teachers) for your children.

Vote accordingly.

Private education by definition is a luxury good, the majority of its users are the richest and wealthiest people in the land, and they choose to send their children there in order to achieve better outcomes than those at state school. They are buying privilege, that's a luxury.

My POV is not wrong, nor is the data.

Lies
Private schools are charities
State schools don’t pay tax, local councils offset everything.

But I dare say you’ll mix my comment up with variations from other posters as you have previously done as you can’t accept that the figures are clear for all to see. If you can be bothered to read, digest, suck it up and move on.
You have provided absolutely no independent facts.

Well ‘I’ won’t be paying less, our household income is very firmly additional rate tax.

I don’t however defend a luxury item that doesn’t pay VAT.

VAT is not a pound of flesh it’s a fact of life.

Thanks @hillaryswankfan. Yes, half an A Level.

My point was that some secondary schools are able to run small classes on some occasions. We have been delighted with my DD's state secondary; she is thriving.

Unlike you Starmer is not an ideologue.

He can analyse information just fine.

The whole "charge private schools 20% VAT" will go the way of the dodo because there are far larger fish to fry in the UK.

Its simply not going to happen in the UK for political reasons

Don't you realise what a gift that would be to the Conservatives?

Many middle income families would vote Tory just for that reason.

I am sometimes aghast at how little strategic nous Labour folks have in the UK. Its like you enjoy shooting yourself in the foot and losing.

Absolutely agree.

Please read the independent article posted by @Noontimes at 6:38pm today.
The only people who will really suffer will, as ever, be middle England.

@TheThinkingGoblin

The tax free allowance in Finalnd appears to be 17,200 Euros with a marginal tax rate of 6% up to 25,000 or so.

There are smaller contributions to local tax/unemployment insurance that kick in earlier,but so does the UK NI contribution ( the 12.5 k is only for income tax).

I think you are either being disingenuous or didn't know this, either way it rather ruins your argument.

You are in fact asking middle class families to pay even more tax to fund lower income folks in state schools.

I suggest people stop sugarcoating this.

That is what is happening.

Don't you realise there will be serious electoral consequences for that policy?

"The only people who will really suffer will, as ever, be middle England."

Middle England doesn't privately educate its children, the highest income earners in England do.

That article isn't indpendent its produced by a group that represent private schools, and its conclusions are proved incorrect by the fact that school fees have risen at a fast rate since its publication, and the predictions it came out with haven't happened.

I don’t think Starmer would be too worried about losing votes from the 7% of parents of school age children who wouldn’t have ever voted Labour in the first place. It’s a minuscule number of votes , far too small to affect policy in this issue.

Irrelevant if it happens or not, politics is all headlines. Where’s the £350m a week for the NHS post-Brexit?

It’s a statement to make a point about equality and tax loopholes. Perhaps you’re not aware the middle income are the most squeezed and taxed group currently under a Tory party - who incidentally caused everyone’s mortgage to increase, so if this angle doesn’t work there always that to play.

@hillaryswankfan how do you know that he wouldn’t have got in had he gone to state school? 90% of the pupils at his grammar went to state school.

You were the one that mentioned £100k first. Maybe have a read through your previous posts. You still haven’t proved anything. You don’t have a breakdown of all the incomes and outgoings of families. You can’t possibly conclude that they will not be impacted.

I hope you are right. I don’t want any children to suffer, whether they are at private or state. But I still haven’t seen any conclusive evidence that the benefits of imposing 20% VAT will outweigh the negative consequences.

It’s a headline grabbing policy that feeds off envy and the Labour Party have not presented any evidence of its benefits or conducted any detailed investigation of the potential impact on state schools.

"You are in fact asking middle class families to pay even more tax to fund lower income folks in state schools."

You are asking the rest of the country to give you tax breaks so you can buy your children advantage over others.

The man who pays VAT for his pint, the teachers who pay VAT on their school lunches cause it would count as a taxable perk if they didn't have to, the people buying anything with VAT on it ( or paying tax on anything) are helping to give the richest in this country a tax break which advantages them even further.

Again,

Do you not understand how first past the post works?

Those people could be the difference between winning and losing in a seat.

The swing votes basically.

Starmer knows full well how it works. No chance this policy is considered. It will be shelved.

how do you know that he wouldn’t have got in had he gone to state school?

I don't, but the fact that he went to private school and was privileged by this can't have been damaging to his chances of passing the tests no?

"You were the one that mentioned £100k first."

I mentioned 100k because someone else posted that to be in the top 10% you only needed to be on 62k, which was for individuals not households.

"You don’t have a breakdown of all the incomes and outgoings of families."

But I do have a breakdown of what % of children are educated at private schools from each income decile, and then a further breakdown of the percentages of children educated at private school from higher earning groups within that decile. So yes it can be concluded that the majority of private school students will not leave if there is VAT put on fees and charitable status cancelled.

It was you that ran the numbers on 100k at a 2.5k a month mortgage, I just proved that even without a VAT rise that family couldn't afford private school anyway (which rather deflated your point).

So it could affect a few marginal seats. It’s not enough votes to worry about, particularly since most of them are concentrated in traditionally Tory areas. Those people aren’t swing voters, they’re people who’d never vote Labour as long as they had a hole in their arse.

You re really blind to the facts already addressed here.
You are not looking at the big picture and understanding the posts.
If private schools are taxed
Kids leave private schools and join the state system at a cost to all.
Worst hit will be middle earners. Someone will need to foot the bill.

The article is independent
Your Guardian posts aren’t.
Let’s see your independent figures please that show there will be no financial fallout ….you keep saying they exist but have failed to post any.

This kind of mentality is precisely why Labour kept losing.

In order to win and govern you have to move to the center, and the reality is the UK is basically center-right.

Starmer needs a majority to govern effectively. There is zero chance he would adopt a policy in practice that would make him lose votes.

I am a progressive liberal, but that also means I look at a situation objectively, and not through an ideological lense.

And the 20% VAT thing is a sure vote loser in one of the most important elections of the last 50 years.

No chance Starmer goes down that road.