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?

I’m generally supportive but would like an exemption for charitable independent SEN schools and schools with less than 50 pupils as these tend to be meeting a particularly need e.g children who otherwise wouldn’t be in school.

I am just wondering for those saying 'I bloody hope so', what benefits do you think it will bring?

I don't see how Labour could backtrack - this is one of their flagship policies. They might stagger the introduction, but they will have to do it at some point in the next five years. As far as I know, they haven't explained how they intend to implement it so I think you have to plan for the scenario where it comes in at full force very quickly; then you're prepared for whatever happens.

Mine are at a tiny independent and my worry is the school closing down. Of course, Labour can't instantly transform the state sector so in the immediate term I think it looks like a lot of pressure being added to an overstretched and crumbling system.

I hope overall that they manage to restore state schools - which have been utterly destroyed by the Tories. Ideologically, I'd rather send my kids to state but the reality of the system means there is no way I'd do it. I don't feel hopeful that the money raised from the VAT proposal will be a substitute for an education policy with vision and direction and clarity about how to rebuild what austerity has wrecked. I really hope that when we see a Labour manifesto, there is more to their plan for education than just this.

I really hope there is some way of managing it for the small indies, whose financial situation is worlds away from the likes of Eton. I would be very sad to see ours close.

Yes this will happen too

Plus schools going bust

And little funding. All sounds ace. Not

State schools had their funding cut by 8% in real terms during austerity. They coped by increasing class sizes, renting out their premises, shelving plans for refurbishments, and reducing the number of higher paid staff.

During the same period private school fees increased by 20%, with no fall in student numbers.

Just wondering why people feel that private schools can't economise to absorb the cost of VAT, in the same way that state schools have had to economise over the past decades?

Exactly the same at the school DS is going to! Granted the blazer costs £100 but they can wear any trouser, shirt, socks, jumper. Sports stuff is branded but huge thrift shop where you can get t-shirts for £5. They can bring a packed lunch, only a few UK trips are mandatory and all sports and clubs are included. I was telling a friend recently that DS was moving to private school and her comment was that the fees were fine but they would be worried about the extras. Still scratching my head as to how £12k pa fees weren't worth considering but spending maybe £250 per year on uniform and a couple of hundred on a school trip are.

It’s not about benefits.

it’s about class hate and envy.

And I’m as working class as they come.

Problem you've got is if these school
close because parents cannot afford them. These children despite being seen as posh kids by some will have to basically take any place available at any school. The ones that nobody wants basically the sinkhole schools.

That’s not fair on the children who have ultimately done nothing wrong. If they are to increase the costs basically they need to make sure state schools are ready and funded enough to take on the overflow about to happen.

Language is a tool for communication- if you understood my post there was no need to correct it, apart from a pathetic attempt to make yourself look ‘clever’.

Let me guess, you think Boris is clever because he can spraff a few phrases in Greek 🙄

@DownByTheLakes that's my worry about Labour in general at the moment. What are their plans, where is the substance and detail?

They are bound to win but has they've been so shady I feel like they could pull almost anything out of the bag and say, "you voted for us!"

No.

i just thought it was rather ironic that someone frothing about private schools used less instead of fewer

The Tories have made a habit out of poaching any suggested policies the Labour Party have come out with in recent years so they're probably holding their cards close to their chests until the manifestos are published.

This is it,

Crap huh

Im sure someone will have already said this but until the state sector, in tandem with CAMHS, can provide the safe, supportive environment my kids need to cope in school, I will continue to go into whatever debt I have to to afford their fees at a small, pastorally focused, very mixed academic ability private school. Until people stop having this debate with a mental picture of Eton on one side and a highly desirable, "leafy comp" as the alternative it's utterly pointless

That's great to hear. So when all these children who's parents can no longer afford private school send their children to your state school, and class sizes go from 32 to 38 all for a 1% budget increase it will still be great will it?

@Yesnosorryplease and that is why I said at the beginning of my post "some do. Lots don't". Whereas you made a blanket statement about private schools having ridiculous additional costs. So I was merely making the point that not all do

Whilst I might be ignorant of the practices of private schools in your area, so are you also ignorant of the schools in my area. That works both ways, and just goes to prove the point that I was making, that people shouldn't generalise about the extra costs of private schools, that so often get rolled out on these types of threads.

But back to VAT on fees. It's not going to be as simple as Labour saying the day after a GE "Right, now there's 20% VAT on education, but only on a very specific type of education at a very specific type of provider."

At the moment VAT applies to a product (or not) if that product is VATable. It doesn't depend on whether the item is considered a luxury version of that product, or on where it is bought. For example, a loaf of bread is not subject to VAT, whether it is a Tesco value basic white sliced loaf, or an artisanal loaf made from wheat watered with unicorn tears and bought from Harrods. It's still a loaf of bread, and so there's no VAT.

So to suddenly start taxing a product depending on who provides it, and according to the perception of it being a luxury version of that product vs a basic version, is quite a departure from current VAT rules and as such will require some careful legislation.

'provide the safe, supportive environment my kids need to cope in school'

do you not think that ALL CHILDREN need a safe environment to cope?

@labpit As a very practical point - if you are already paying for DCs' school (s) on a "wing and a prayer " I think VAT is the least of your problems. School fees rise a lot year on year.

Are they? Apparently they have to pull off a swing bigger than Tony Blair to get a majority. I don't underestimate Labour's ability to fuck in an election.

@fleurneige yes we do… which is why we are trying to pay for it.

why does it help for everyone to give up and join the inadequate schools? How about we all try and do better however we can? Not paying for private school doesn’t magically make the state school child’s life better, does it?

To have asserted this policy so confidently, they must have plans about this I assume? They won't want to whack up university fees 20% as well. I hope we get to see a thoughtful and comprehensive explanation of this when we see the Labour manifesto.

Right now it feels like a very Tory-style approach of setting people against one another - something the last 13 years of government has done very successfully! I want to see some productive plans that show they understand what's gone so wrong in education, and that they have multiple strategies to tackle it. And I hope schools and parents get some time to plan ahead, knowing what's coming.

Really shocking that with all those educational advantages, and the plebs being so thoroughly failed by the state system, kids from the state sector outperform them at uni then, isn't it?

What with the state kids being failed and needing to be written off, and the privately educated turning out to be startlingly mediocre when faced with a level playing field, I think we should just accept the country is roundly fucked.

It will happen. I’m perhaps a bit of a hypocrite in that I think the country would be better if all kids were educated in good state schools. And religious schools were banned. And I sent my DCs to private from the age of 11. It’s a big name London school with a lot of burseries and an emphasis on service.

They’ve had a fabulous education and we’ve spent a small fortune. Would I do it again? No I don’t think so. The reason we went private is because DS got a place at a school we didn’t like. He’s academic and there was no streaming. We panicked and put him private. Younger sibling followed later.

Our friends were braver than us and sent their kids to the “crap” school…. And he’s now at Oxford. Our son did well…. But is not at Oxford. All the kids I know who’ve got into Oxbridge (bar one) are state educated. And that’s as it should be. And you see the same social mobility in practice with big graduate employers.

Are you really bestowing a massive advantage on your children if you send them private? I don’t think so if you think long term. But I imagine most posters on this thread will say I’m talking rubbish.

Have you looked at the state school population projections?

This argument keeps getting wheeled out. It's not the gotcha you think it is....

That’s fine. So I’m ok with people paying and reducing burden on the state system