Do you think labour will actually implement 20% vat on school fees?

[labpit]

We have two in Year 7 and year 10 and I am not sure what we will do if this happens. It is a certainty do you think?

VAT raised would be less than 1% of the school budget, it would be like pissing into the wind. If the school population grows by 1% due to the increase it would render it utterly meaningless, detrimental even.

I work for a private school and our opinion is it is a done thing if Labour get in! Sorry.

@Yesnosorryplease - my friend's husband who is a consultant charges £120 for a 15 minute private consultation - there are very few people in the military who have that earning capacity at any point in their career.

The military is necessary, doctors are necessary. I'm very pleased that your friend's husband (does she know you are so against their career and lifestyle?) has had such good postings. My dh is about to post to Lebanon for a year.

He has been to Iraq, Afghanistan and the falklands. We have moved from county to county across the uk and abroad.

Boarding school gives my dc stability and to do so we make huge sacrifices. Placing VAT on private schools will go even further to increase the gap between the very rich and normal working class families.

Anyway, people are getting very heated just like over brexit - like our opinions on this board will change anything 😏

My DC went to a private school for several
years and I never heard any of that sort of thing. There was a lot of trying to help the kids connect with how lucky they are and to consider others less fortunate. There was, of course, no discussion of how privately funded education helps to maintain that inequality and there were some that wanted to be seen to ‘do good and say good’ but most were genuinely kind and caring that recognised their privilege. Weren’t prepared to downgrade to help other upgrade though!!

There are some state boarding schools. I believe children of the military have priority access to them.

But it’s not just about the money. It’s Labour saying that state education needs to improve and that paying for your child’s education is only available to the wealthy. And everyone should have the same access to good education.

If there’s no extra money then you’re falling for spin

It amounts to nothing

They’d be better off keeping students where they are a capitalising on falling rolls in state sector

Smaller class sizes and extra funding pp, much better

How many students do you think will be forced out of private schools? Do you think a huge exodus is a bit of an exaggeration? This thread is full of people calling supporters of this policy naive if they think it will raise any money yet we MUST ALL agree that there will be people leaving these schools in droves if it goes ahead. What numbers are you talking about when you say exodus? Actual numbers not just anecdotes about knowing so many families scrabbling down the back of the sofa for pennies to pay current fees.

The language used in these threads always gets ridiculous. It's like you're all writing daily mail headlines. Hardworking families, making huge sacrifices, working so hard to scrape together every penny to give their children their only possible chance to not turn in to a mouth breathing thickos are being punished by those spiteful and economically illiterate labour supporters. Any of you with mortgages have been fucked over much more by Liz Truss and the tories in recent years. But is that ok because the extra money you may be paying out is going to the banks and not the state?

I don't care about whether vat is added or not but I do enjoy the dramatics on these threads. The contradiction of we don't have another single penny to spare (but we will price you out of the catchment of any decent state school if you dare to think we should pay more) and we don't look down on you (but your grammar is shit and you are all economically illiterate). If this policy comes in then it's sad for those who may no longer be able to afford the fees. Do you also think it's sad for those who can't quite afford now? What are you doing to campaign for it to be affordable for them? Or is it just because you're worried YOU might find it unaffordable that the affordability of private schools becomes an issue?

How will they all have access to this good education if more pupils are forced into the already overwhelmed state sector and it doesn’t raise anything like the money needed to improve it? It doesn’t create good education for all, just punishes some of the students that do have it. I think you know this, and would actually prefer for state students to suffer in order to punish people you see as more privileged.

@Kendodd there are, they are limited though and in an area where we are no nowhere near and have no familial support. It's a risk but it's one we're considering.

I totally agree with the vat on school fees. I think private education should be abolished. Tax the rich.

As I understand it Finland have no private schools (or very, very limited, just things like international school were you can't take Finish exams). They also are thought to have the best education system in the world. What are they doing so well (without private) and why can't we do that?
My thoughts are that the powerful/wealthy don't want their system because they don't want more equality, they want to keep inequality, because it advantages their kids over others. We could have Finish standards of education here for all if we wanted, clearly, we don't want it though, we don't want the poor to have the same opportunities as the rich.

The point is that 1% of the budget won't improve state education to any significant degree. Especially not when Labour have promised it to 3 different areas already. Plus it won't even end up being a full 1% when all the costs are included.

It won’t be abolished.

You can pay for different levels of everything in this world, not sure why education would be different.

Britain is not actually a socialist country.

Well l guess they costed it? Anyway, if you can afford private fees and you want your children to have a private education then you can stump up for vat. Most of us have to use state schools. Tax the rich,

Ah, ok, I understand the level of debate you’re at now.

You might find your politics landing you with a higher tax burden

Fine if you would like to stump up covering those who opt out but I prefer their taxes here not elsewhere

“As I understand it Finland have no private schools (or very, very limited, just things like international school were you can't take Finish exams). They also are thought to have the best education system in the world. What are they doing so well (without private) and why can't we do that?
My thoughts are that the powerful/wealthy don't want their system because they don't want more equality, they want to keep inequality, because it advantages their kids over others. We could have Finish standards of education here for all if we wanted, clearly, we don't want it though, we don't want the poor to have the same opportunities as the rich.”

It is very different here though. We rely on skilled immigrants all the time coming here to do jobs and pay lots of taxes. We also rely on foreign students to pay their way in our universities. Finland does not. So our education system is much more geared towards that. The question is whether the overall Maths for HMRC will be massively down due to the policy. If you end up having women work harder to afford school fees in the top tax bracket then you will be up. If they quit and move into catchment of the top states, you get the opposite effect. I think partly this is why the discussions on Mumsnet are so relevant because it represents that type of woman. There is also a huge question mark over milder SEN/dyslexia because we know the rates across private schools are high (some will claim because private schools game the system for extra time in exams, so there is always an answer from some). There may be links to the parental groups having an older demographic and children later in life, for example. We just do not know how this will pan out in reality.

I think they will do this. I think people who really cannot afford it need to think ahead now before all the good state school places are taken by others in the same boat or think about remortgaging and taking out equity in time. There is also a question mark over whether you want your child to go to a type of school that is actively deterred by Government of the day, likely to be in power for the next 15 years.

They have costed it 🤣🤣
The point is we can't afford fee rise + VAT, we are comfortable but not wealthy. We prioritise education over a big house/mortgage etc. That's why we live in small semi in the North ie under 200K.
So with VAT we will move to a better catchment area and therefore perpetuate increased house prices etc

We are less wealthy than a lot of our friends but they choose foreign holidays, new cars and big houses. We choose education.

I have the money to chose private and did for many years until a move…

It’s just putting in place what should have been in place all along because it’s FAIR.

It’s not penalising anyone. If it feels like it’s penalising then that’s a ‘you’ thing not a policy thing.

It’s not going to fix state education, of course. But it will add in some extra, much needed resource.

It won’t lead to droves of private kids rocking up at state schools all of a sudden. Because the schools and vast majority of parents CAN afford it. I know. I saw the cars, the watches, the clothes. I heard about the holidays and houses and boats etc.

The schools profits/shareholders could afford to take the hit. The school could pause expansion plans or make some staffing cut backs to lessen the cost to parents. They could rent out their facilities to make the extra. Loads of ways they could avoid passing the cost on.

I used private Ed for DC for several years. This isn’t sour grapes. It’s just what is FAIR. It IS a luxury to send your kids to a fee paying school when education is free at the point if access.

The hyperbole on here smacks of the privileged desperately trying to hang on to yet more privilege. Suck it up and get over it. It could be a hell of a lot worse. Some people can’t afford to feed their kids properly. I say this as someone who has had the privilege of using private education and who is comfortable but not wealthy.

For those who might struggle with it and the kids need to move school, I do truly feel for you, but you are in the minority and will still be privileged enough to have the extra money saved in fees to pay for extra curricular activities and tutors (my plan following a house move and switch to state education), which is out of reach for the vast majority.

It IS fair and whining that it’s ‘It’s not fair’ is pretty grotesque in the appalling situation we are in at the moment with kids being let down so badly by society.

ElevenSeven- you do realise that the many countries where State Education is so well funded, equipped and staffed, are NOT AT ALL socialist countries. It is a political choice indeed, to put funding into a better society, with better qualified, and as such 'productive' workforce at all levels. Part of the massive divide in UK society, starts very early, at primary school- and endures right through life for so many. And as a consequence, many of the huge social problems, which cost us all massive amounts of money, and yes, HUGE cost, of poorly prepared workforce.

We’ll send them to state like the rest of us🤷🏻‍♀️

Wealthy or not, you’ve chosen fee paying schools over available state education. I can’t feel upset for you.🎻

Still missing links to the data showing large numbers of currently privately educating families will be unable to cough up the extra £8 a day the imposition of VAT will result in.

Also no explanation of why when state schools have been able to save money during austerity by having larger classes, this option isn't available to private schools which currently have double the number of teachers per child than the state sector.

I think what people forget is that everyone who chooses to privately educate their children also pays for the education of children in state schools.

A survey by the Independent School Council (Nov 23) states that approx. 20% of privately educated would move to state, with an associated cost of close to a billion. So leaving now approx 700m for improvement in state schools.

Ideologically it may make sense but let's not pretend that it will have any impact on improving state schools - in the short term it will make things worse, esp. in certain areas while state school absorb those leaving the private sector.

Until funding increases by a lot more than the funds raised through this initiative schools will continue to struggle.