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?

I imagine a lot of parents who don't want to pay 20% more will instead use the money they would have spent on private school to buy a house un the catchment area of a good state school - pushing out poorer families and making good state schools "private" without the fees. It's a no-brainer. Good, free education, nice house, win-win for everyone except the state and poorer families.

I don’t have children and probably never will. If I did probably couldn’t afford private school.

But for me this policy represents a widening class divide. I’d like to see educational choice made more accessible, not less so.

Much prefer the Scandinavian way which is about topping up the cost of education, so everyone gets the benefit of a country providing education for its young people, and there is incentive for people to work towards having a choice….a far more accessible choice than our current private feed + potential 20%.

There is no one for me to vote for. My main concerns are housing (building and policy), women’s rights and productivity; are we making work worthwhile for people. I’m not seeing this issues addressed sensibly anywhere.

what a load of tosh they are telling us. As someone said, it just moves the inequality elsewhere. The super rich will still afford it and likely lots of recruitment of overseas students will continue at higher levels if locals can't afford it.
The state schools will be flooded.
For my children we are effectively saying instead of 60K per year, I now need to find an additional £12000 - where will it come from? I don't have it now and I won't have when labour come into power. for less I can hire tutors together with other parents and home school the children.

Or make donations to the school for free tuition. Nobody is paying 20% tax.

Vote however you want, but do consider other policies. The Tories are destroying the NHS, Education, Policing, the judiciary etc

They don't.

The home department (usually FCDOA or MoD) deals with all allowances - including Continuation of Education allowance - for all their staff overseas, and being posted abroad by the government means the DC are treated as if in Britain (both in nationality terms, if born overseas they are still British Other Than By Descent; and for eligibility for home levels of tuition fees).

If you mean working overseas for a private company, then it is up the the individual or the company to deal with the relevant department directly. The Embassy would not usually have a role (other than perhaps in validating locally issued documents)

This is what has happened in East Herts. Three local amazing state secondaries may as well be private as you need at least £1mm to buy in the tiny catchments; only a handful get places outwith them each year

This! I am in the catchment area, but on a waiting list. At the moment paying 60K a year for 2 children and not rich - I don't have the additional 12K - so would likely pull them out from private school.
I am inclined to move abroad as I have dual citizenship - I don't have to pay for private school in Scandinavia - the government pays for it. So this policy could work for me if it forces me to leave.

We have this already here. It’ll just increase

They can still offer free tuition to donors. There's no law against that. So the fees would in effect be a donation to the school so you can't charge VAT.

Please explain - they don't pay tuition fees? I lived abroad and many children with parents working in embassies attended private schools instead of state schools. Who pays for it then?

there is no way the state infrastructure can be upgraded quickly enough to take an influx of more kids who would otherwise have went private

Lots of state schools are in desperate need of upgrading, but I’m not convinced that it just needs to be done for the “influx” of private kids. There are about 2 empty state places for every child in the private system so even if every private school shut down overnight (not happening) then those children could be accommodated. What they couldn’t have is their first, or even second or third, choice of state school. If a school closes down, lots of parents will switch to another private school. maybe we will see smaller, poorer, private schools being absorbed into larger more financially successful ones, as well as some dc leaving for the state system and some not entering the private system who otherwise would have. If parents choose to leave the private system (because of their own circumstances rather than their school closing), they will often try to keep going until a place comes up at a state school they like. If anyone has to leave because of VAT charges, given that they will have budgeted for the normal fees until the end of their dc education, most will be able to balance keeping the dc in school until they can get a state place they like as they will save the entire fees going forward. It’s different when they need to withdraw suddenly due to bankruptcy/unemployment etc.

Its not ideal to suddenly turf a load of kids out of their schools and if this is introduced I would hope it’s done gradually -0% for a year, rising to 5% for a couple of years and then 10% so parents and businesses know well in advance what to budget and what choices to make. 0-20% overnight I don’t agree with. (20% ever I don’t agree with tbh). If they did all get turfed out overnight then there are state places waiting for them though.

I think it's a bad policy and I'm guessing it will disproportionately affect SEN provision - e.g. my child who is privately educated might need a place in a SEN school or at minimum a school with an autism resource base if we were priced out of private education. IME many autistic children, diagnosed and undiagnosed just fare better in a smaller setting. So the pressure on already underfunded SEN education increases.
It's not going to be the only issue I vote on though.

I would vote labour if not for this policy. Not sure I can bring myself to vote Tory so will have to review the least bad options between the rest - prob Lib Dem as the default.

But it seems totally unfair that there is currently no VAT added. Why should those who can afford PS be given this handout? The priority should be to the state system.

It is illegal in the EU and also does not happen in any other country in the world.

Why do you think that is if in your opinion it is so obviously unfair?

Has literally the entire world got it wrong and Labour are the only people on the planet to make the right call?

It's a crap policy and probably will have quite a big influence on how I vote. Not just because I think the policy itself is badly thought out and will have lots of negative repercussions but because I hate this kind of equality virtue signalling that does absolutely nothing to address true inequality.

Private schools tend to offend the middle class the most who can't quite afford the fees and feel frustrated that the children of other middle class people with more money are getting an advantage. What they don't see is the whole system is broken and that money infiltrates all areas of the state education system too. We have people with more money buying houses in the catchment areas for better schools up and down the country and nobody bats an eyelid. We also have people with time and resources to attend churches and pretend to be religious accessing better schools and people hiring expensive tutors to boost their chances of passing the 11+ and go to desirable grammar schools. All of this basically leads to state subsidised inequality when at least private schools have the decency to charge their families for the privilege.

All the main political parties know that they can't begin to address true inequality in the educational system because it upsets the middle class too much. They would rather pretend that there is a way for all state schools to be as great as their middle class schools in middle class areas with engaged parents through mythical unicorn policies. In the meantime they love to see those slightly better off penalised for their advantage.

For those that disagree with me, imagine the government suggested that parents who attended outstanding schools in affluent areas should pay a few thousand pounds each year for the advantage this school has given their kids vs an average bog standard school. The money raised could be used to invest in struggling state schools in poorer areas. What would the response be? How can you justify the VAT increase on private schools morally and not support this kind of policy too?

The department in the UK which is the employer of the member of staff concerned (what I meant by "home department" in the previous post) - usually FCDOA or MoD.

The Embassy (High Commission, NATO mission UN delegation or whatever) has no role in this, either in administering the scheme or in making the payments. Rules on who can claim CEA (the continuity of education allowance) can be found online. The ceilings for claims are revised frequently, to keep pace with inflation and that system would deal just as well with a rise caused by changes to taxes

So the government pays for it for those workers abroad - it just has a different name and process for accessing the funds.

I think a lot of posters are missing a key factor in why this will probably be less of a problem than they are predicting - numbers of children are falling. There was an article yesterday in the Guardian about plans to “mothball” state schools across London and use the buildings for other child related services (like preschools, youth clubs or sure start centres) because the numbers of children living in London currently have fallen to the extent they’ve got too many state primary school places for them- even if no one went private in 2 years time.

then the low birth numbers will travel up and mean secondary places are going empty.

I talked to an estate agent who has said the increased distances in our town for the most desirable primary schools has had a knock on effect on houses within half a mile of the schools, families no longer need to move close by to get a place.

secondary is a similar issue - the expectation is the most desirable state secondary school in our town (that’s not a grammar) will have significantly larger distances offered when this year 6 get their offers in April. The premium you currently pay to be close by will reduce.

so timing wise, even if you allow for it only being 6% of all children currently educated privately, if half of that number who would have gone private decide they can’t afford a £200-300 a month increase in fees, it’s likely state schools can easily accommodate them.

If someone pointed out falling rolls meant lower class sizes I’d be happy with that instead

Keep dc where they are and make state more attractive due to smaller class sizes

@FancyBiscuitsLevel I know of people who have just moved here for work. Several families who haven't been able to get places for their children to attend school. So I am not sure how accurate what you are saying is. If this is the case why are these children at home and unable to attend school?

In my area my daughter is on a waiting list. She goes to a private school currently.

I will not vote Labour for other reasons, it is Labour's stance on women's rights that bothers me the most.

BUT this is a ridiculous idea.

Pushing children from the private to the state system when the state system is falling at it's knees anyway is going to be horrific for education.

Full disclosure ; I don't have children in private school. I do have children who have been failed by state schools.

@notthatthis - there is currently a boom working it’s way through schools - it’s years 8-10 and then there’s still large numbers at the key stage 2 level, but birth rates have fallen, so from 2025/26, there will be too many reception places in London (and across the country as a whole), whereas for those currently in years 8-10, their parents were struggling to get primary school places when they were 3/4 years old.

This is actually what we do. We use our would be fees to cover private music tuition etc.

And yes, we're in a small village catchment in a nice house. However, the catchment is big enough to also include several housing estates and some less affluent areas. And does our money and involvement in pushing the school to offer chess club / orchestra / lacrosse / subsidised language classes and outstanding STEM equipment at state school benefit those kids from less affluent areas? Yes it does.

Take kids from private schools and have more involved and invested parents in state schools with more disposable income to support the PTA / school / offer opportunities to all, and yes, everyone benefits.

Also there are few areas in this country with proper 11+ grammar education in the state sector (Lincolnshire, Trafford and parts of Kent I think) so the notion of tutors for better secondary doesn't work IMO.

If they could change the policy on School fees to pay fees for every child to the school of their choice thereby giving equal access to schools for everyone then I would vote for them. like they do in Scandinavia.

But the school fees + the fact none of them know what a woman is means I will not vote for them. Nor will I vote for the conservatives. I don't like the path they have taken. I feel people like Kemi say anything for votes. None of them actually care about the voters.