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?

The majority of the middle classes can't afford to send their children to private school anyway. People who can are not the "squeezed middle".

you have completely missed the point on this. There is a lot of children with Sen in small independent schools, they are not schools specifically for children with Sen but they can cater better for kids with Sen due to small classes, being more individualised etc. the child may not even be on the Sen register as the environment means they manage ok. If a child has an independent Sen school named in their ehcp then it is the local authority paying the cost anyway so vat isn’t a cost to parents. Making Sen schools exempt from vat would make no difference to the issue

Where I live parents can get some SEN funding from local authorities for independent mainstream schools so those places should be exempt from VAT.

But it makes no odds because if the local authority are funding the place they can claim the vat back anyway, it’s only where a parent is paying for a place it’s an issue

I think they only make a contribution.

The policy needs to be carefully thought through and all children will a diagnosis of an SEN as well as all previously looked after children need to be exempt from VAT on school fees. It’s one way reducing the impact.
The impact that this is going to have cannot be overestimated. Especially if no exemptions are given.

But that won’t be for all kids with Sen that are in mainstream independents. Because the Sen support system is so broken in this country parents to have fight tooth and nail to get any support kids have to show that they have completely failed in mainstream school for an la to consider an alternative which can be traumatic for all. Lots of parents don’t want to go through this fight and the emotional harm it does to their children so they may choose to fund a small independent school at an earlier stage, in which case they’d get no help from the la. It’s these parents who won’t be exempt from vat even though their kids have Sen.

if they start introducing exemptions for any kids with Sen ie. Not just those with ehcps, you’ll suddenly find virtually all the kids in private school are said to have some sort of Sen, where is the line drawn . Private schools already have a higher percentage of kids that get special measures in exams than state mainstreams

Exactly @Morph22010 this is absolutely right.
This is why there is a 10 month wait for tribunal because EHCP panels are making poor decisions that are not child focused. Local governments don’t have the resources and due to the lack of funding, they don’t want to commit to any more support than they are forced to.

I don’t think it’ll make much of a difference. If you can afford £20k pa for private school you can afford £24k. Tory voters are over represented at independent schools anyway so the swing will be marginal. Hopefully the money raised with filter its way into the currently starving state system. The good news for you is that if you’re sending your kid to a state primary it will at least be better funded than it is now - so a Labour government will actually benefit your child.

But it probably won’t be @PieAndLattes any extra revenue from this farce is not being ring fenced for state education.

I know it won't be for all kids with SEN in mainstream independents but that it an argument for improving identification of SEN and support for all children regardless of the school they are at, rather than not charging VAT for all children in mainstream independents, regardless of whether they have SEN and regardless of the fact that their parents might have plenty of money to pay the VAT anyway.

It doesn't really matter whether it is specifically ringfenced. The more money going into the overall pot the more money to pay for education.

I’m sorry but that is such a misinformed view. Just because someone can afford something that is outside the affability of the average person does not mean that any price increase is manageable.

By that same reasoning if rents for example were to increase overnight by 20% you would also agree that was insignificant?

The money will be lucky to represent a 1% increase in the state education budget and likely to be a lot lower than that, possibly even end up being a drain on the public purse. Literally nobody is likely benefit from this policy, it will just create losers, which is why it is so ridiculous.

It’s the same as the NHS promise from Boris when he was campaigning for Brexit. You’re a fool if you believe it.

It really is.

@Charlie2121

I am not sure you will get very far on here. The lack of education is palpable. They seem to think everything complex has a simple solution (which it just doesn't).

They also ignore that raising fees is not happening in a vaccuum. You also have:

Council tax increasing
Mortgage costs increasing
Energy costs increasing
Food costs increasing
Insurance costs inreasing
Water costs increasing

All of those things will be combining with the increase in fees to make it unaffordable for people at the margins.

As I said in a previous thread this will primarily hit the aspirational middle class (who can barely afford to send their kids to PS), the families with children on bursaries or scholarships, and SEN families that go private (because some PS will end up closing).

The fact that they don't care about this tells you all you need to know about their attitudes. Its pure resentment with a side of spite. They are financially hurting so they want others to feel their hurt as well.

I saw this as well in the Brexit vote, and that is turning out about as well as I had expected.

End result is going to be an even more nessed up state school sector, with the same people on here complaining about it.

@Charlie2121 Starmer has little else so you’re basically being used for electoral nonsense

You may as well pay for his campaign with dosh

It won’t do anything else

This is soor on for many families.

Well said!! Not to mention families that will get up and leave (I know many foreign families getting very impatient with all that is going on in the UK and how stagnated and unfulfilling life is becoming here) this will be the cherry on the cake and they will
leave for their home countries where PS cost a lot less more often than not, taking with them often 5/6 figures worth of income tax and spend that would have gone in to the UK otherwise.

We are one of these families (my husband is British, I am not), he has been keen to leave for a while now but I like our set up for our DCs in a lovely local PS with lots of friends in our the neighbourhood. However, the envy based politics the Labour Party thrive on are absolutely off putting and not conducive to the type of aspirational and inspiring environment I want my children growing up in. I now agree with my husband that once the children finish prep in a couple of years, we will leave.

Any Tory voters who plan to leave if Labour get in are welcome to go.

If high tax payers go will you pick up the tab?

Feel free to do so

The Tory voters that plan to leave if labour get may be high earners but I bet many of them are not particularly high tax payers.

Good luck filling the gap but if you’re keen fine by me

The type of person who has one foot out of the door and who will only stay in the country if it is run by the Tory's will be paying as little tax as possible so not too worried about a gap in tax.

People don’t get behavioural impact and it’s a problem