VAT on private school fees - will it change how you vote?

[Iwishicouldflyhigh]

Following on from the other interesting thread about whether it will be implemented, will this policy change how you vote either way?
For me - i've voted Labour and Tory over the years, but Tory for the most recent GE's. This year, i've been thinking seriously about how i'd vote at the next GE and it wasn't definitely a Tory vote - i was definitely a floating voter.
However, my children are at PS and so i will now most definitely be voting Tory (not just because how the VAT will seriously impact us - child number 3 will now not be going to the prep that we had lined up for her, she'll enter the local primary until secondary school - but how i think that it will affect schools negatively and children negatively).
I have a lot of left leaning friends who educate privately and whilst they cannot bring themselves to vote Tory, they won't vote Labour either at the next GE because of this policy.

It seems to me that this policy is only a vote loser (ie many Labour voters and 'floaters' who school privately won't vote for them at the next GE) and not a vote winner (ie i can't imagine that many Tory or 'floaters' will vote for Labour solely on this policy).

AiBU to think that Labour have really shot themselves in the foot with this idea?

That’s a very naive view.

Firstly who cares where the schools are if you’ve suddenly got 20k extra spare cash every year to fund the move?

Virtually every excellent non grammar state school anywhere near where I live is in an expensive area. If I move there I’ll just deprive another family with less spare cash a better opportunity for their child.

Secondly most 100k+ jobs are extremely mobile now that technology allows you to run an effective office from home.

I negotiated a permanent WFH contract once my salary reached and surpassed such levels. I could live pretty much anywhere and still do my job with ease. It certainly isn’t a factor in where I live either now or in the future.

Another thing impacting London schools and limiting them is falling rolls. Boroughs are closing and merging state schools, or reducing their PAN.
This reduces their funding. Half full means half the funding. More funding means more capacity. There’s absolutely no risk of the school spaces been taken away. If the local millionaire does take a space it’ll benefit the school with additional funding. It’ll bring potential contacts to the PTA and capacity. Multiple millionaires taking the spaces won’t hurt at all. The poor are not helping by sending the elite elsewhere. They pay good taxes, they are more than entitled to use the state system if they wish

But given that nearly 90% of state schools are good and above a good school will be found in all kinds of catchments.

What is more important is the privately educated being unfairly over represented in the top unis and jobs. Perhaps put your deep concern for state educated kids in that direction.

Mixing the state educated and the wealthy early in will raise university aspirations.
It will expose more children to a range of jobs through social contacts. They’ll have conversations with friends about entry requirements. They’ll start feeling ‘if so and so goes there, I can too. We do work together!’ Rather than ‘no one I know goes, no one from my schools goes… it’s not for me’.
I didn’t meet an adult who’d been to oxbridge until I was an adult myself. That does impact your aspirations without ever knowing it at the time.

“Good” is a very subjective word.

If you believe that 90% of state schools are adequate places to learn and provide an environment you are happy to place your children into then I’ve got some magic beans you may be interested in purchasing.

So you don’t think that the robust inspection system we have is fit for purpose but the system is good enough for the 95% just not the special 5%. And you want to win an election with that view.😂😂😂

I’m fine with the state we use

I don’t need @Charlie2121 to be hit up with extra tax as a gimmick to pull in voters

It’s a farce

Ofsted is pretty pointless and ineffective for a number of reasons including assessment criteria and frequency.

It is also a political tool. The government is hardly going to want the outcome to show that the majority of schools are not fit for purpose.

it’s up to others if they are happy with that. I decided to prioritise education over everything else so that I could avoid it. Others will make different choices which is of course absolutely fine.

As for elections well I’ve already explained that people will vote for taxes they don’t have to pay themselves. That’s easier than them working towards becoming one of the bigger net contributors.

@Charlie2121 I understand you suddenly have 20k spare to move, but that 20k was always spare to move and that person chose private over moving before. So the delta is the cost of VAT to go to your private school v the cost of moving to go to the state.

The houses that guarantee the best state school in my area would mean paying between 27k and 90k in stamp duty. If you already own a house not in the catchment, thats a lot of hassle and money. it could even mean giving the government 27k to move to a house worse than the one you already own.

Obviously different areas have different house prices and fees so this is locality dependent

@Charlie2121 you're not thinking or expressing yourself logically. You're also very London-centric. When mÿ DC were at a rural secondary school, the catchment covered a wide area including social housing and multi million pound houses. Some of the housing was in a new build village where prices were a lot lower than the "quaint" traditional villages. House prices didn't depend on the school, they were influenced far more by proximity to a station or travel time into the nearby town.

I now live in a small town with an outstanding secondary school. Again, quite a large catchment area and a huge mix of children. If you live in the town or one of the catchment villages, then you will get a place at the secondary school.

Most people who send their dc to private schools don't vote Labour. So I doubt it's going to make a huge difference to how people vote.

Labour have spent the mythical £1.7 billion four times over in their proposals! Not that this, the only “education policy” that Labour have at the moment, will raise such funds.
There will be an influx of children entering the state system, of which will cripple it. This will also include those with SEN/EHCPs and previously looked after children. Labour are not accounting or making contingency for this. There’s no money in the pot allocated for the additional pupil premium payouts and EHCP funding which will cost far more than the income from the 20%.

The places will be filled with overseas students who are exempt from VAT and so the government and therefore the state education system will only suffer and not benefit from this.

However, there is quiet but hard lobbying going on at present. The local governments are very concerned about the consequences of this, as are heads of schools (state schools especially). They are keeping it out of the media and not speaking out publicly so it gives Starmer space to climb down from this without looking like he’s lost a fight. He’s being bullish about it though and just can’t get his head around the fact the it doesn’t make fiscal sense because he’s using it to keep a demographic vote.

I agree that stamp duty is a factor but more specifically for those perhaps looking at just senior schools.

Those of us at the start of a 14 year school career can justify the expense a little more as averaged out over that time period it’s not too onerous.

I suspect the reality is the impact will be mostly created by those with pre-school age children who are looking to upsize for logistical reasons and will factor in the option of moving to better state catchment areas instead of using private schools. The stamp duty is less of an additional cost in those circumstances.

I don’t live in London or the SE.

We (husband and I) are higher PAYE earners, I think all of our friends are, none of our children attend private school, there is no chance of any of us voting Conservative and we didn't all vote for Labour before as it is about the bigger picture i.e the mismanagement of the economy over the last decade and Brexit. The economy is decimated, nothing fucking works, public services eroded deliberately by pursuing policies that generate more and more wealth for the very wealthy. Wealth inequality is at the heart of this, it has destroyed economic progress which actually would make everyone better off and not just the few. It is disingenuous to state the rich are there from sheer hard work and to suggest that the rest of us are leaches wanting PS parents to use their hard earned money to pay for our state schools - come off it! We are not discussing income we are discussing wealth, you house, your stocks and bonds, your savings, art even, wealth grows for those that have it, can keep hold of it via various policies the Conservatives have had in place, income does not and fuelled by a housing crisis the Tories have created, in real terms most of the population have lost out. Wealth is not based on any notion of meritocracy and you earning what you are worth

No, the income tax brackets for earned income are alright.

The issue is that many wealthy people receive passive, unearned income in the form of dividends from business or from capital gains by cashing in investments. These sources of income are taxed at a lower rate than earned income, especially capital gains taxes which are taxed at 20%.

So a wealthy person might take an “income” of £5m from their trust account but they will only owe 20% tax on the capital gains of the money on that.

Eg, if that £5m was worth £2m on the investment date, they’d only pay 20% on the £3m in capital gains.

@Goldenbear

You keep conflating "the rich" with people who earn an income via PAYE.

The people that make £60k - £200k/year via income via PAYE are far from rich.

They are paying marginal rates ranging from 40% to 70% of their income.

These are INCREDIBLY high rates given they get next to no services in return, and its that which is what is hurting the UKs productivity. This then has a knock on effect on the taxes that are collected. This then has the effect of making all of the people complaining on here poorer (as less money is available for public investment.

I cannot stress this enough. Those people also pay the bulk of the taxes that subsidise the people that are complaining in this thread.

The real "rich" are those that derive their income from property in the UK.

This has always been the case which is why they always lobby hard for property taxes to stay very low in the UK, while they get subsidies via taxes from the people who earn a living from income.

Its quite a financial racket they have going and they use the media to keep the masses ignorant about just how things actually work.

I agree that the super rich usually make money from assets, not employment, but the market is not good at assigning value and we are all subsidised by people earning low wages in essential jobs.

@Merrymouse

We aren't being subsidised by lower wage workers. Its the oppsite way around.

What is happening in the UK is that the minimum wage has become the maximum wage for many because of benefits.

So effectively, higher earners are paying for those benefits, which are used to top up their wages. And its actually worse than that for higher income earners.

They also face paying the FULL post-tax price for many services, while their taxes go to subsidise the cost of those services for the lower earners.

Thats why they are getting fed up.

Its the combination of very high marginal rates and higher prices to subsidise the lower earners that has led to this. And this has serious implications for the UK.

It is happening as we speak: people are going PT instead of FT, they are going into early retirement, and if they have the option..leaving the country for a better quality of life for their families.

This entire scenario only ends one way if you run it through: a poorer country with lower levels of real GDP per capita.

Actually @Paellaaaa no many don’t. FWIW I agree charitable status should be moved and everything that comes with it. Doesn’t bother us - we’re not wealthy. But we will manage.

What bothers me is the political division this creates which are behind so many of the issues in our society and also some of the damn right nasty, bitter, frankly c*nty attitudes demonstrated on this thread by grown adults at other people’s children. It’s actually quite disturbing.

Back to my first point, we didn’t have a choice, we’re both medics with no family nearby, neither of our closest primary schools which are nice village schools offer wraparound care, we tried without success to find a childminder with places - hen’s teeth. Looked at a nanny again hen’s teeth and so low value when you consider the average cost to our local private school - which offers extensive wraparound care as well as flexi boarding from 9. We could have applied for another primary out of catchment which does have wraparound albeit with a waiting list at time they would have started however we had no idea how we would have covered this interim and how long we would have waited - also no guarantee we could have got a place and it’s a 20-25 min drive. So it was either fee paying or me or one of us leave jobs we very much don’t want to. What would you have had us do?

And upon starting there are so many families who yes might earn more than some but are not mega rich by any extent they just have a career which means they need extra childcare. There’s a lot of forces children, farmers and other medics at DC’s school. As well as people who have to travel extensively for work who just wouldn’t be able to do those roles with state school hours.

Jeez could you be anymore patronising. We (husband and I) are high earners, so are all of our peers, I have family that are way beyond high earners but they are voting to get rid of a Conservative government as they are the ones that have decimated the economy, they are the ones that have made everyone worse off via Brexit!

I am not pointing out the differences in income that have got us to this position, it's the differences in wealth and the endless Conservative policies that have fuelled that inequality. Concentrated wealth erodes the economy and is bad for democracy. If it is such a racket why are you voting for them to stay in Government?

@Goldenbear I can’t work out if you’re just very pro Labour or really do care about inequality

This VAT thing will do bugger all other than appeal to the voters who think it’s anything more than a farce

Or maybe it hits that spot where people who are high earners can feel virtuous because someone else is paying an extra tax and they are not

If the numbers who can't afford this are going to be considerable, whole PSs bar one very wealthy family (come off it) then why can't they just apply to become a state academy? Increase ratio of pupils to teachers, more akin to state schools to save money?

Why do you need to work out what I am, why me in particular out of everyone on this thread? Strange fixation you have.

What about you are you a committed Conservative or anti-equality?

Won't be voting labour. Will have to vote Tory.