To think that those private school parents banging on about their fees

[Thegreatergoodgerald]

Seriously have misjudged how little anyone else gives a stuff??? NHS, social care, state education, public transport, bloody potholes everywhere - that’s what matters to everyone I know.
Not whether or not VAT is added to a business.

YANBU - it’s hardly the end of the world if Clemmie or Charles end up going to a state school. We have bigger things to worry about in the U.K. right now

YABU - of course everyone cares private school parents might have to pay more

Were you so worried when they were only available to the quite wealthy?

I've got two in state and one in private and I'm all for the VAT rise, providing it's ring fenced to improve the state system which at the moment is absolutely dire in far too many cases.

The private school my DS attended is the largest private sector employer in the county town I live in. It's not a posh school at all. Most of the pupils are from middle class homes often the children of local business people who made their money themselves, or forces children. If the school closes that would have a massive impact on unemployment in the town. Other local secondaries are all full.
Do people not consider this? Schools employ many people other than teachers and spend a ton of money with local tradesmen.
I just see the vat thing as a pointless exercise in class warfare. The money it generates will just disappear into a black whole whilst destroying much that is good.

Rubbish, private schools are already only available to the very wealthy. This is why people get annoyed with threads like this. If you have a spare £20-30,000 every year you are extremely rich!

It's c.7% across all age groups.

It's much lower for prep/primary age, slightly more for secondary age, and anywhere between 18-21% for sixth form, and it's been fairly consistent for years.

Also, you need to bear in mind that the proportion of sixth form age who are in school is considerably lower than CSA years (5-16 yos), so it's not directly comparing like with like.

There’s nothing here.
Just words about what we want to do.
I think just about everyone in the street including all political parties can say
yes we’d like teachers to be happy
yes we need to spend money on schools

🤣🤣🤣🤣. It would be funny if it wasn’t so incredibly worrying!

If only life was so black and white. I'm poor, unpaid carer, live in a mouldy rented shit hole with disabled kids.

I know that even when rich well educated posh people have heart attacks they are still at the mercy of our broken nhs.

I guess I'm a outlayer but I I want my kids to rise above their roots and aspire to fo better. Not for everyone to come down to my shitty baseline.

My kids goes to a shitty school so yours can too, attitude doesn't give me joy.

I presume because Labour is aiming to balance the books a bit after the mess the tories have left the country in?

Certain sections of society aren't unable to absorb any further cuts. Private schools aren't one of them.

Stay in your working class lane was heavily pushed on my parents when you'd adults. I say do better, climb out of your past

Average income in the UK is £34k. Two parents each earning £34k can afford ~£1250 for one child to attend private school providing they forgo all other luxuries. It's more about priorities.

I love the idea that the very wealthiest in the country are enriched by the company of the top 5%ers, who give them a lens onto a wider and more diverse population!

It's a batshit policy but some of the arguments against the tax are very entertaining.

It won’t happen. It won’t happen because the majority of parents of private school kids are largely ‘normal’, and so they’ll just pull their children out of the school and then the local schools will explode and the system won’t cope. Those who can afford to keep their children in private likely will and will be largely unaffected.

All it will do is fuck up an already struggling state education.

You are more privileged than most people in the world but I bet that doesn’t stop you ‘banging on’ about your problems and wanting sympathy. It is all relative.

Only the very wealthy who won't feel the pinch. If you have 2 children paying 30K per year, that's an additional 24K bill. Unless you are super wealthy most people will not afford to shell out this. So it leaves very very wealthy people making private schools even more exclusive

You will care when all the state schools suddenly have to find places for the kids that need educating by the state because they are no longer in private. The state sector in some areas won’t cope. You think teachers are stressed now?! This won’t help a jot.

The birth rate has been falling a lot. In 5 years time there will be surplus secomdary school places
The squeeze we see right now is the high birthrate cohort of the years around 2010 or so. Skip forward to now and there are 15% fewer kids being born. It's a huge drop.

The point is.

If you look at the current demographic and how it has changed over the years there are far more people able to afford private.
Architects, doctors, small business owners and so on.

Those will be priced out
Leaving a greater divide in terms of private and state. A divide which has, in fact, been narrowing.
I would rather see a continued narrowing of the divide than a party that takes us back years and years.

You can be middle class and support state education.

So we should pay more? What if you can't afford it, so you pull the children out, keep your extra funds in your pocket and move them into a state school, costing the state even more?
It's not a very smart policy is it?

The top earners in the country also pay the majority of the tax bill. What happens when most leave?

I worked out that in order to pay current fees for one child of around £1200 per month, we'd need to be taking home a total of £3600 per month, or £1800 each. That's £25k each, or one person earning £56k. Most private school students have 2 working parents, made slightly easier by the fact that most private schools offer free wraparound care. Take home pay of £3600 might be a little above average but it's certainly not "very wealthy."

@Pin0cchio so does Starmer wait 5 years before he introduces this policy?

So what do these average families do with their other children? Toss a coin? Spin a wheel if more than two? Or is there a UK one child policy that I haven't got the memo for?

It's not about priorities. Finding that kind of money is beyond a large amount of people in this country's wildest dreams. Take a flipping reality check.

That's why I said 18^% applies to A levels

Part of being a decent person is looking past our jealousies and having empathy for the issues of others.

You might not have empathy for anyone with money, or for the many families who work incredibly hard and forgo holidays etc to pay for school fees (Some will tell you they don't exist, but I know several) but others do.

Clearly it's going to cause stress for many parents, who may well feel guilty that they have to uproot their kids. Difficult also for the children who are happy at their school but are forced to move.

Local schools, already full to bursting, will need to make space for them, somehow. I just hope that the kids they encounter there will be more understanding than you, OP.

For what it's worth, I think changing the VAT status of private schools is the right thing to do. Doesn't mean I don't give a shit about the upheaval it will cause to some, though.

The local authority will claim the VAT back. So it won't be paid by local authority tax payers. Additionally it's possible that independent specialist schools solely fpr children with EHCPs could retain the exemption.

@Thegreatergoodgerald Thegreatergoodgerald@ For a start - not for one second does anyone believe that there will be enmass departures from private schools.

This is incorrect. The FT did a piece on this. And a lot of families are avoiding fees now.
This will narrow the catchment in good areas and children in less well off neighbourhoods will not get a place.
The majority of children’s school fees are paid for by grandparents who have saved their money and want to pay instead of leaving inheritance. 60% ish. Not super wealthy people
places in private schools will be taken up by international students. So instead of a local kid whose parents can just about manage fees it goes to someone who will take that education to their own country—I’m not racist it’s just fact.
It’s like shooting yourself in the foot.