To think that people who agree with VAT on private school fees but not on university fees, are hypocrites?

[Blanket601]

If Labour add VAT to private school fees, they should also add VAT to university fees. Or no VAT on either. The principle and rule, should be the same.

Why is only private school education being platformed. I think we all know why.

The patronising claims, insults and general superiority are most definitely a recurring theme It seems. MisterChips gets a little bit chippy when people don’t buy into the Dad economics. There seem to be two modes - transmission and aggression and not a lot else going on. It’s predictable and increasingly amusing.

I haven't got an agenda. I was just interested in whether anyone had a good argument for not at least trying this policy. I haven't seen one.

To the extent it's all about power and politics and you're "winning" you're probably right. To the extent anyone here cares about truth and good public policy, you're wrong. Everything needs scrutiny and evaluation of both sides.

Only one person has provided a coherent justification for this tax, agreeing that equality was their only value and it must come at any cost.

The rest of you don't even try. You snipe and contradict all the concerns about this terrible policy, you'd rather NOT read what the consequences might be....and then you accuse us of bias.

And you'll regret arguing for a society that rejects truth when somebody comes for you, your children, your livelihood with a pitchfork, justifying it because it's popular.

I don’t think this level of hyperbole helps your case.

Presumably Labour will have considered, and here’s just two examples that come to mind

1. The affect on either the MOD budget or / and the families of our armed forces.

After a FIR in 2015 the MOD noted £84.5million was spent on educating the children of members of the armed forces in order to provide continuity of education etc for armed forces children whose parent(s) are posted abroad.
A small figure in the grand scale of things but there will nevertheless need to be an increase on this budget.

Presumably Labour will have considered

1. The affect on Local Councils budget or / and vulnerable children who are currently in Private Boarding schools. Some boarding schools currently offer councils a 40% reduction in fees and the rest is financed by the Tax payer. Given the huge success of this scheme running since ( I think about ) 2017 ( see Norfolk council report for example ) both in terms of money saved to the council and outcome for the kids, will this scheme be affected. Has Labour asked schools and councils how things will pan out if the Tax is introduced.

[ As an aside a relatives stepdaughter was on this scheme at a London Private school from the start of GCSEs. It raised her attendance from 0 to 100% ( she was boarding though ) and her grades from extremely poor reading ability and not being able to multiply to gaining a University place. It raised her positive attitude, work ethic and stopped her self harming. ]

There is no doubt this scheme has an enormous positive outcome for vulnerable children. If schools have to reduce the 40% reduction to Local Councils, if some pull out of the scheme and with a fee increase due to the tax it may no longer be a cheaper alternative to putting the children in care.

I can confirm there is, to date, nothing from Labour on how these grey areas ( of which there are many more) will be affected.

I don't think you appreciate the consequence of @wombat15 earlier comment, that he/she doesn't need to prove anything because they think they have power, and power itself is a sufficient justification for public policy.

Do you seriously think your disingenuous rants and hyperbole are helping your case?

“I haven't got an agenda. I was just interested in whether anyone had a good argument for not at least trying this policy. I haven't seen one.”

If it is a risky policy that is likely to come back and bite you in the backside and waste loads of DFE/Charity Commission/HMRC etc etc time and may cost you your own political career just to indulge those in your party who want to catch “the baddie” for one minute, then that would massively put me off. But each to their own.

That is a very good point about armed forces children. Let’s assume an MOD spend of £85m per year. In reality, it’ll be higher than that now because of inflation/fee increases. That’s another £17m if VAT is added. I’m fairly sure that the IFS calculations (which the Labour Party are using) don’t take account of that. It’s things like this that need to be costed. In reality though, we all know that this has absolutely nothing to do with raising tax receipts. They’d implement the VAT policy even if it produced a net loss to the exchequer.

I don't have any more power than anyone else with a vote.

If you haven’t got an agenda, why were you twisting and misinterpreting the posters comments? If you played fairly someone might actually take what you are saying seriously. Repeatedly telling someone they have a superiority complex because they don’t agree with you doesn’t help your case.

There have been lots of decent arguments on here but lots of people are not willing to listen because they have preconceived ideas about what private schools are like and the people that attend them. That’s clear from the many offensive comments. There were some directed to me yesterday that were absolutely foul. It’s also clear that many posters don’t care if this policy will impact children negatively because, as far as they’re concerned, the children are fair game because of their “rich” parents.

What are you talking about?. I don't have a political career.😂

Well said @Dibblydoodahdah
unfortunately this modus operandi is the majority of the electorate.
Brexit bus again

My point is they can easily fudge this and still make it policy without an associated risk. All they need to do is commit to billions of value of contributions from the private sector to the state sector.

The tories brought in Brexit and many rich public school parents voted for it.

That's not critical thinking, it’s logical thinking.

I’m pretty sure @Blanket601 said she went to a shit comprehensive school, which is why she wants avoid it for her children.

??

The majority of the electorate voted for it, obviously. The majority of the electorate is neither rich nor do they send their kids to Private School.

Im perfectly aware which party allowed the referendum on leaving the EU.

(If the Conservatives were proposing a tax on private schools I’d also be against it unless it stacked up financially and would make positive differences.)

It may surprise you I’m a traditional Labour voter like my parents before me. I’m currently a floating voter based on

1. this issue
2. Womens rights
3. any party willing to stop supporting genocide in Gaza …

I think only about 37% of the electorate voted for it actually. Regardless you keep mentioning it as though it is similar and a left wing idea when it was quite the opposite. Also, whereas Brexit cannot be turned back, charging VAT on private school fees could be if it doesn't work. The people arguing against it all have a vested interest and it reminds me of the arguments against smoking bans in pubs or the minimum wage. Both policies could be turned back but neither were because despite the arguments from people with a vested interest that it would have a negative effect on everyone, the benefits outweighed the negatives for the general population.

“The tories brought in Brexit and many rich public school parents voted for it.”

Evidence?
Most professionals with any type of economic and political awareness were very anti Brexit. Some were naive and thought this could never happen.

Is this another of those Bojo/Reece Mogg cliches that all Etonian’s and their parents must be pro Brexit because they personally shorted the pound in their hedge funds?!

Brexit can be turned back somewhat, We just need to start negotiating and working on our relationship with the EU and individual bilateral agreements. Why don’t we start with letting youngsters go work and live and study there as recently offered? Oh wait a minute- neither party is keen because they don’t want our young to get out of this current hell hole!

People opposed to the tax don't all have "vested interests". There are people on here opposed to the tax who use state schools and agree that it's a bad tax, which, objectively, it is. You haven't even tried to make a positive case for it (just as the Remain campaign didn't even try to make a positive case against Brexit), you're too busy not reading evidence, twisting arguments and accusing everyone of being biased.

Even so, having vested interests doesn't mean we're wrong. It does mean we're the ones in a position to decide whether this tax will raise money or not, because it's our subsequent choices that you're taking for granted.

The difference between us isn't as you think. It's that if any party tried to impose a discriminatory, unjust and economically harmful tax on you, I'd want to understand it, and I'd be willing to oppose it, even if it didn't affect me, because strangely enough I care about you and fellow Brits and the way we're supposed to be governed.

What we're hearing is that you don't really care about this tax, you're not interested enough to consider its effects in detail let alone read anything about it, and it very clearly comes across that harming us isn't an unfortunate side-effect it's the whole point.

Apologies OP for the derail but just to correct

72% of the electorate voted at the referendum, Not 37%
The majority of votes to leave were from pensioners and the non working population.

see below. Just a quick Google this is the top article but there are many

As an aside. I have no reason to be personally invested in this. My kids are either at University or have already left.

And this is exactly why I have no qualms about causing disruption if this policy is introduced. We all know it’s just to ‘get back at the rich parents of Eton’. Meanwhile, apart from a few very wealthy parents in our private school, the majority of us will struggle with the increase. Many of us also have children with some sort of special need who didn’t cope in state schools. This was our only option!

I am so angry about this and for all the children who are going to have their education disrupted. As are all of the parents in our school. I voiced my idea in the playground this morning about enrolling everyone into state schools and causing chaos if this policy looks to be going ahead and everyone was up for it!! This is the hill we are all willing to die on. Our council is completely crap and on its knees. We are a 1000 place school. Good luck with them dealing with 1000 applications for state school places! They never have enough every year for the children who actually need the place so just what are they going to do?

Absolutely and the idea that ‘oh well if it doesn’t work Labour can just reverse it’ Is farcical and completely ignores the elephant in the room…….The Kids!

It’s such an ill thought out policy. The glee which some people have at the thought of children and teachers being disrupted is, quite frankly, appalling. I think their reaction speaks volumes about the type of people who are looking forward to this being implemented. It’s a truly spiteful proposal.