To think good school places will be even harder to find next year because of the VAT on school fees

[Nesca1]

We are are looking at secondary schools for DS. We have our eye on a decent school bang in the middle of a solid middle class area . The school is always over subscribed; this year we would have gotten a place but last year we would have missed out because of how far we are from the school.
Usually, the school offers places to children living 1600m away, last year it was 1400m due to a large number of sibling applications.

Due to the whole VAT issue, i think more parents from the local area are going to be sending their kids to this school, rather than sending them to private schools.

Is this a reasonable assumption? I don't think parents will wait for the policy to be enacted, but they will move their year 6 children into this school.

@MisterChips - legally the appeals are going to be interesting. My child who can no longer attend private school due to an anomalous levy by the Government of the day and will be without school place and psychologically damaged from moving away from what they know - how will the local school who has given my Y7 a place show that the prejudice to them is going to be greater than the prejudice to my year 9 for not being admitted? My Year 9 who has suffered through Covid and now all this financial stress in the family etc etc and surely they have to go to that same school as their sibling etc

just so you know, there's no evidence for the claim that putting certain families and children, especially if they are reluctant, into less-preferred schools has any benefit to the school or to other pupils. This is an argument that keeps popping up and is entirely without merit. File under "something people read in the Guardian".

Gosh, you are insufferably patronising. I have a masters in education from Cambridge, I'm not just getting ideas from the Guardian. Feel free to cite all the studies demonstrating the lack of evidence. I'll wait.

Sorry, cant find the original post you are quoting but totally agree.

According to statista, in 2023, the average annual full-time earnings for the top 10% percent of earners in the United Kingdom was £66,669. When you consider the cost of private school fees, it sounds like these families are already going to be making sacrifices. It doesnt suggest that your average fee paying parents are blowing their noses on £20 notes.

I'm really sorry for being insufferably patronising.

Please, you're the one making a bold claim. Go ahead and show the evidence that supports your claim.

Because, "having a masters from Cambridge" you'll doubtless recognise that asking for "studies demonstrating the lack of evidence (sic)" isn't exactly an intellectually robust request. In fact, it's insufferably silly.

Parents who feel they are having their choice taken away from them and are suddenly pushed into a system they do not want are hardly going to be jumping for joy.
Realising That is just common sense and doesn’t need a degree from Cambridge or indeed any Institution.

That's ok, nobody wants your joy. Just your money.

“I have a masters in education from Cambridge”

This one?https://www.postgraduate.study.cam.ac.uk/courses/directory/ededmeppe

And where did you do your undergrad @Whatifthehokeycokey and what in?

If you are going to throw the Cambridge uni brand around, back it up.

You're the one who brought up evidence. Still waiting.

You've misquoted me, by the way. I said "masters in education from Cambridge". Intellectually robust indeed.

No, it won't affect my LA as looking at the stats for last year we have many schools with spare places against their PAN. A brief scan down the list shows 60%-70% with spaces available at the reception start point and at Y7.

Schools continue to close here.

Filling up our state schools would be great. It has the additional benefit of keeping schools at the centre of a village. Residents do not like their school to be taken away as it takes the heart of the village away and self fulfils in that young families don't move in because there is no local school.

And for the millionth time, nobody knows how families and schools will react, and it doesn't take very much change before it raises no money, or negative money.

This is a hopeless policy, its only possible merit is if the only thing you value in education is equality and you're willing to forgo everything else in the interests of levelling down.

I have a masters in Economics. From Oxford. But it's OK, it's just A-level stuff really.

@Eastcoastie maybe you need to understand stats better?
The £66k for top 10% is based on disposable income for households.
Statista actually say the top decile earned on average 196,638 pounds per year in 2021/2. They can pay school fees if they manage their money well.

@MisterChips We will see. But what you fail to understand is this is about fairness in tax.

Well @Whatifthehokeycokey

“That's ok, nobody wants your joy. Just your money.”

That is precisely what we are arguing about. There ain’t no money coming into the public purse with this policy. It may end up being dressed up as that in the short term for fool Joe Bloggs, but we all know the actual truth. Especially anyone with a Maths or Economics degree.

I do not think many private pupils will move to the state sector. They are just saying because they do not want to pay more.
But if it did happen, in many cases it would be positive as you outline. Not everything is about money.

@NoisySnail “But what you fail to understand is this is about fairness in tax.”

So what now? You are the morality police?

No, not that one. Lol Oxford. Theology. Back it up with what? A selfie in my Ospreys blazer?

I'm hardly going to list my publications!

I know you may think the state should subsidise your choice to privately educate your children. Many people disagree.
There is nothing wrong with morality.

Theology? Interesting.

So we are back to the morality police and ideology trumping facts & figures. No thanks - I do not want anyone else to impose their value system on the many without their actual proper vote to sign up to that specific ideology.

If you run the campaign based on the truth that it is all about the ideology, I do not have a problem with it. Not one bit.

At the moment, the Labour Party are lying. They are trying to sell the general public a lie, namely that this makes some sort of fiscal sense and will help state schools. That is what I am objecting to.

And I am objecting to it, because I do not want to live in a society where politicians routinely get to lie like that. We have had enough of that. It undermines democracy and faith in our political system in a very real and long term way.

@NoisySnail - you misunderstand. We use the state system. I have 4DC. I cut my hours and support them accordingly. However, HMRC would have been better off, far better off, if I still worked 60-70 hour weeks and sent all 4 private. Which many of my colleagues do, except they have 2 DC, max 3.

@Araminta1003 Not theology. Most people agree private schools getting a tax advantage is nonsense. The ideology of a fair tax system is a very mainstream one.

@Araminta1003 I do not think the state should be encouraging parents to work 70 hours a week. Children need their parents.

If, as you claim, it’s a tax advantage are you able to explain why not a single other country in the entire world taxes education, indeed some such as Germany actually give income tax refunds to parents who use PS.

The EU has even made it unlawful to levy tax on education.

Has literally every other country in the world got unfair tax rules relating to education or do you think the UK is possibly about to do the wrong thing and everyone else is correct in their approach?

The state is not subsidising my choice to send to a private school. The opposite is true. My taxes are subsidising a state system that I do not use. The fact that state schools can claim back VAT for goods and services where private schools can't means that the private sector is subsidising the state. (The wider state, I mean).

People without children are subsiding a state system that they do not use. Should that make them VAT exempt on other services?

Obviously

Except there won’t be any 🤣🤣