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?

Many of the private schools (outside of the Eton / Harrow type elite) have been struggling to survive, with multiple closures over the last few years. I know of 3 within my vicinity which have had to shut down.

Whilst some of the fees have trickled up slightly in the ones remaining, many are servicing massive debt at higher interest rates, simply look at their accounts online. Supporting many on means tested bursaries effectively mimics a drop in income per child.

In any case I believe the schools will impose half to all the VAT levy onto fees, because they will have to.

If all this tax take was effective it would be almost 1% of the state budget. Attrition into the state sector for those parents who cannot afford it will significantly reduce this take to almost an inconsequential level. It could even hit state schools adversely if lots of private schools close.

It's a false economy.

I wasn’t frothing about private schools. I was frothing about a poster that thought we needed privately educated kids in order to staff professions like doctor, engineer, lawyer etc. Do you agree with that ignorant nonsense?

What ignorant drivel.
I say that as someone who has taught in both the state and independent sectors.

Idk @DownByTheLakes, you'd hope that they had thought about it very carefully before announcing it, but a few years ago they were confident that they'd strip private schools of their charitable status, and that turned out to be a complete non-starter, so 🤷‍♀️

I am looking forward to seeing a properly costed proposal, including how many extra state school places will be needed (and not just as a number spread across the country, which makes it look insignificant, because any increased demand will be very lumpy, and some towns/LAs might be completely swamped, whereas others are untouched), how much the net increase in tax take will be after VAT is reclaimed by the schools etc etc.

Sadly, I am not confident that it will materialise. And that's not an anti-Labour comment, I would have no confidence that a Tory govt would produce it either, if this was their policy. They are all as hopeless as each other.

Until someone can prove a net benefit, both fiscal and in terms of educational outcomes and life prospects for all children, then I am yet to be convinced that it isn't just a policy to set one group against another for no real reason other than envy politics.

I bloody hope so. I work in a wonderful state school. If we had half the money equivalent private schools have, life would be amazing.

If the money could go straight from private school to state school I'd support it, even though I'd be paying it.

But the sad fact is there so much bureaucracy that struggling state schools are unlikely to notice the impact.

That’s not what this policy is going to result in though?

Perhaps people should be asking Labour where the extra funding for state schools is coming from then, because it’s certainly not coming from VAT on school fees. It’s estimated to raise a relatively tiny amount.

Whatever it was you were frothing about, your grammar’s still shit.

This!!! And to the people who are keeping their fingers crossed.. just wait to see how it 'helps' state schools with the extra pressure they will have on them.

"The more sensible idea of reducing inequality would be to improve state schools to such a level that people don’t feel the need to use the private system. Most parents using the private sector aren’t paying thousands a year for the fun of it."

That's simply not possible, even when you disregard the fact that there will never be financial equity between state and private schools, and private schools will never take their fair share of socially disadvantaged and challenging children that make state schools more difficult places for teaching and learning.

And the whole point of private schools is to educationally privilege children, ie confer an advantage on them that the majority of children don't have. As evidenced by the fact that the highest percentage of children at private schools is in the part of the country with the largest percentage of high performing state schools - London. It's not enough where I live for your child to go to a comprehensive which routinely turns out kids with strings of As at GCSE and A-level, and who send kids off to Oxbridge, Harvard, to study medicine, law, music etc. Whatever state schools do, they'll never be good enough.

The last thing people with kids at fee paying schools want is for their child to have to compete on equal terms with the 93% of children at state schools or to have to mix with children from significant disadvantage.

They want the money raised from it to put towards struggling state schools

Except it won't make nearly as much ad they say it will (plenty outvthere to explain this if you care to google). And if it's to recruit more teachers, where exactly do you think they are going to.magic them up from?!

The vast majority are not charitable

Not making a profit for shareholders though, are they?

they might have to refund a load of tax previously paid on capital projects

This in the first instance. And then obviously they will be able to claim back what they pay out moving forwards.

Good point but I suspect in this case the councils will also be businesses so the VAT would be reclaimable.

Actually it does not work that way. Neither does it for the NHS.

When you have a shortage of well qualified teachers - so many going to schools with 12-15 kids per class, means that the shortage for other schools gets even bigger.

Many countries decide to fund State education so well, both in equipment and staffing, that private schools totally lose their attraction. It also leads to much better social cohesion and less social welfare picking up the pieces. It is a political decision, and win win all the way, FOR ALL including society at large.

@fleurneige of course I want that for all kids. But what some kids require to feel safe and flourish is considerably more than others. The endless anecdata about posters' kids who did great and went to Oxbridge from state schools are lovely but is it really so hard to understand that not all kids can cope in that kind of busy, crowded environment? And that the state schools I have access to do not provide what the private one does? Anyone who thinks this policy will somehow change that is deluded. I would bloody love not to be beggaring myself to give my kids what they need, but as things stand I have to and do feel very fortunate that I WAS able to cope in state and did well enough to earn a salary to make this choice remotely possible.

The lastthing people with kids at fee paying schools want is for their child to have to compete on equal terms with the 93% of children at state schools or to have to mix with children from significant disadvantage

You really don't speak for all who have children in private schools. Nor do you have an understanding of who chooses private over state in the majority of cases. They're not all Eton. Not by a long shot

Yawn. Any extra money has got to be worth it. I'm old enough to have been teaching since the mid 1990s. The school I worked in then had buckets in corridors because the roof leaked and the Tories wouldn't provide any cash to fix it. Labour came in and rebuilt the place. My current school has parts closed due to RAAC but this shit government can't even give us a bloody toilet block to replace the one they shut at the start of September.

Classes have grown in size - I wish my pay had, but because I'm experienced, it hasn't - I have no issue with younger colleagues' pay progressing, but food, energy and fuel has risen far faster than my pay. We achieve far better results than the private schools nearby so why shouldn't they be charged a levy/VAT on their fees?

The local.independent secondary my son attended is the biggest private sector employer in the town. If it went under there would be many many job losses.There are 2 other local independents. If they all failed there would be 100s and 100s of jobs lost. There is only 1 local state secondary rated good. But yeah, tax private education, only rich parents will suffer...right?
The school is not full of posh rich kids. Most are the kids of hard working professional or forces families. Many are on scholarships or bursaries.
The teachers would not just move into the state system. Some would but most wouldn't.

I'm assuming it will take a bit longer to implement
We have natural break points coming up so would likely move kids then if needed

Can you explain where that extra pressure is likely to hit, and how it aligns with current state pupil projections?

I can see how there may be people who divert from planned private to state in Y7 24-25, which is the peak year for the school population, from those concerned about this policy. (TBH we took it into account before deciding to send our current Y7 to a state school this year - that and Liz Truss's efforts made us decide that private was just too much of a stretch and too risky for us, and we won't be alone in that.)

But after that, and when the policy actually takes effect - that's when the population drop starts to feed through quite dramatically.

Of course it won't be uniform, but at a system level over the next ten years, the state sector could absorb the entire private sector and still have fewer children enrolled than currently.

It wasn’t long ago the party voted to abolish private schools altogether, then dropped that plan when they realised it wasn’t workable.

I’ve always wondered why it wasn’t workable. Was it to do with the UN ruling that the state couldn’t have a monopoly on education?

It really depends on where you live. Good for you, you live in an area with what sounds like an excellent comprehensive. Not so where I live.

Except the frogs are the most privileged in society. And most can easily afford it. I say that as one of those privileged few.

We did do private until a move and us, along with many other parents, felt that charity status and no VAT were unfair and didn’t make sense.

Please make no mistake that the vast majority can afford this. Some, like you OP will be just about doing it but most would only need to cut back on one of their several holidays a year, sell one of their properties or boats or vehicles. May be downgrade their vehicle. May be cut back on some other luxuries. Sell a couple of shares. Most it won’t even have an impact.

We have to address the MASSIVE and obscene inequality in this country. It isn’t good for any of us.

Yes I hope so

"This!!! And to the people who are keeping their fingers crossed.. just wait to see how it 'helps' state schools with the extra pressure they will have on them."

I don't think anyone's suggesting that the money raised by charging VAT on school fees will undo the impact of a decade of austerity and the damage caused to schools by growing health, income and social inequality.

FWIW - many state heads will be rubbing their hands at the thought of an influx of high achieving middle class kids from private schools, particularly in London where many schools are dealing with falling rolls, which is resulting in school closures and staffing cuts.