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?

To be fair, I had help from both sets of grandparents and my DC's father (we're divorced).
I know they're lucky to have had the education they did. My point is that if that change had occurred while my DC were there, they'd have had to leave. There was literally nothing left.
Eldest hasn't gone to university because I can't afford it and his DF is no longer financially responsible for him so is doing an apprenticeship instead. DC2 has had to do sixth form in a comp school much further away because she's old enough to drive herself there.
I know I'm not poor, I never suggested I was. I was just pointing out that many people won't have enough left in the pot to be able to stretch to the proposed increase which i think will be hard for any children that have to leave school and friends etc because of it.
Sorry if I don't get my point across very well

The schools that are charities will remain so, bursaries are just one method of proving public benefit. Some schools do things like shared INSETs with state schools or joint orchestras or joint cadet forces instead. Some will have big endowments which pay bursaries and this wont change. Others will offer bursaries as a percent of their total fee income - this might reduce if their fee income reduces.

The benefit of a charity is business rates relief but both major political parties are looking to remove that.
Some different rules around taxes paid on any investments.
Gift aid on donations.

The vat thing isnt to do with charitable status. Some goods and services are vatable whoever provides them.

Let’s hope so

They will unfortunately. But it's up to the schools if they increase the fees. I don't know if Labour have thought about where the children who are removed from private schools will go in areas where school places are scarce. I would assume not.

Did your dad and sister attend a comprehensive this side of the millennium?

@Naptrappedmummy it absolutely will happen. It’s one of their best policies and they’ve been talking about it for ages. Stop deluding yourself.

Bring it on.

@WellWillWoll so you had help because you couldn't afford it. Most people can't.

@Naptrappedmummy I think this policy is race to the bottom idiocy but we used a comp recently and the usual requirement for A stars etc was met. But it was by house price to a fair extent so many invested parents

Yes they will and yes, it will be a shit show. The usual political strap line (and both parties are as bad as each other) with no thought behind it. All the parents (and there are MANY) who skin themselves to send their children to private school, will be priced out. There ARE no available state school places for their children, so what happens to them? The money raised won’t go anywhere NEAR creating enough state school places or raising state school standards to the level they should be at and even if it did, it would take years for that money to filter through and make real change, so more generations of children, who already suffered thorough covid, get shafted again?
Meanwhile, the uber rich don’t even notice the extra 20% and just carry on. Who, exactly benefits from this? No one. It’s a bull shit policy and I would never vote for it. If you want to live in a communist state, there are many you can move to.

But they aren't charitable. It's bollocks. If they truly were it would be OK but they aren't. Only 1% of pupils are on a full bursary and 7% on a partial bursary (so not economically deprived kids). That is not charitable by any stretch. I run a charity and we have to have a trading arm for our non charitable activity which we receive no special VAT treatment for despite the fact the profits are used to fund our charitable activity.

I hope so!

If they do introduce the tax, but exempt SEN students then don’t be surprised when the waitlists for already overstretched SEN assessments / services suddenly increases. I say this as a parent of a diagnosed SEN child, in an area of the UK where new SEN referrals have now been put on hold. If there’s a loophole, it will be used by some.

If a plan to raise less than 1% of the school budget with serious pitfalls is their ‘best idea’ then they’ve got problems don’t they?!

Yep

The point is - if people somehow scrape money together to pay nursery fees - why is paying private school fees so outside the realms of possibility that people automatically assume only the super rich can afford it?

They won't expempt SEN students, they will expempt the provision of special education and define that in someway, so a school that only takes sen students would be seen as providing special education.

We are considering moving into the catchment of the good state schools and supplementing with tutors BUT in some areas the jump in house costs isn't that far off the total cost of fees so from what I can see money is still key to a 'good' education it's just being g spent differently. We currently live in a not desirable area as we'd rather spend it on PE for various reason. Also there are a lot of independents in our area I just cant see how the state schools will soak up the increase in pupils

So is everybody happy that the 20% will be added on to university fees as well?

Meaning student loans will need to be bigger and the level of debt students come out with will be greater (£70k+)

Do you have any idea how ridiculous you sound?

The vast, vast majority of children in the UK are state educated. @Naptrappedmummy I know many, many highly skilled professionals who were state educated. I also know many privately educated doctors and unfortunately their sheltered lives full of material privileges do not always stand then in good stead when faced with the harsh realities of other people's lives.

My DC go to high school that was RI when they started. It's recently been awarded Good, as it always should have been. They have a great time, loads of committed staff with a huge amount of extra curricular opportunities. Oldest is on track for all 7-9 at GCSE etc etc.

I went to private schools, as did all of my family and many of our wider circle. I can absolutely assure you that being able to pay the fees does not mean there aren't some pretty nasty people at school. It doesn't mean your DC won't be subject to bullying or sexual harassment (indeed if you looks at the Everyone's Invited scandal, private schools were leading the way!) As a friend always says, "private school just means pricier drugs..."

The appallingly prejudiced and snobby comments by some in this thread make me relieved to have absolutely nothing to do with independent education.

Op, I do think it you are already struggling re fees then you have made a mistake regardless of political changes. Fees go up every single year and that is a compound figure. The issues with energy bills, fuel and food costs etc have to be passed on to the consumer.

It’s the stupidest policy. It’s all about bashing the big posh public schools. The big problem is that the parents at those schools, like us, will just ride the storm (and my youngest is starting next year so I have a full set of fees at this level).

The schools that will be affected are those where parents are making the sacrifices for the fees ie: the vast majority. This means the kids will end up in an overstretched state system and the gap between those can do it and those that can’t will be even wider.

As soon as the policy looks likely to be implemented house prices will go through the roof.

The VAT addition It won’t make a shread of difference to those with millions, but for the majority who are whacking another 10 years on the mortgage to be able to educate their kids, it’s the last straw.

People will move en masse to catchment areas of good state schools. It’s still effectively “paying for education”, but you get to turn a profit on it when you sell the house when the kid leaves school.

How is that going to help anyone? It essentially turns state schools private by stealth, as they will be out of the price range (by catchment) of the majority.

People will just push up house prices near outstanding state schools and there will be even more competition for grammar places. I don’t see how this is actually helpful to the people who can’t afford private education already, it’ll just push normal families further away from accessing good education (not everywhere obviously).

@Yesnosorryplease

that’s great you have that view and perspective on it. So you’re happy with state - great. Surely you don’t want to penalise the mugs who are choosing to pay for education, then? Because after all, why would you care if we waste our money on something you are so sure is unnecessary? I’ll wait for your reply although I suspect it won’t be forthcoming or clear.

Totally agree with this. We need to start championing academic excellence for the sake of the future of the country, opening new grammar schools would be a good start.

Because people for whom this is a consideration deliberately space their children to mean that the government funded hours or school kicks in before the second one needs paying for.

Because you only pay for nursery for a couple of years before you get some relief from eyfs finding and then school.

Nursery is year round for that money. Private schools have stupidly long holidays that would require paid for childcare in addition to the fees.

I paid more in childcare than I earned each month for about a year. We had savings and drained them to cover this. We then had a 4.5 year gap deliberately to allow us to save up to do it again.

It is absolutely nothing like committing to 12 years of gradually increasing fees plus the ridiculous added on costs, trips, transport, lunches exorbitant uniform prices etc.