Private school fees - act now for SEND!

[BellesAndGraces]

The King’s Speech is scheduled for this Wednesday (17th July) and it will be followed by 4 days of debating Labour’s proposed legislation in Parliament, including the introduction of VAT on private school fees.

If you have a child with special educational needs or a disability and send them to a private school because your local state school was unable to meet their needs but do not have an EHCP I would strongly suggest that you write to your MP and tell them why you send your child to a private school and how the charging of VAT on private school fees will affect you. Ask your MP to stand up in Parliament and ask the government whether it is willing to expand the exception they have agreed to make for children with EHCPs to cover all children who attend private school in order to meet their SEND. If you share your story and circumstances with your MP you will be providing them with a case study they can refer to in Parliament about how charging VAT on private school fees will affect those of their constituents who are already dealing with the challenges that having a child with SEND can bring.

You can find out who your MP is and their email address here: https://members.parliament.uk/FindYourMP

Well said.

I don't want my child to go to private school because of the opportunities, academics, facilities or connections. In fact the private school we're considering isn't great for any of these things.

I just want them to go somewhere where they can actually cope with attending and ideally won't talk about killing themselves if they have to go.

Few parents will have the time - if you've spent several years trying and failing to get state support, some years in private and then to try and fight through EHCP again - my dc have already had too many bad years.

That's why anyone who can will try and lumber on til a stage they can move them at.

That figure of 7% also conceals a lot of age and stage variation. So it's much higher in London and Edinburgh and Surrey, higher at sixth form, higher in areas where there's historically been a shortage of state places etc. Higher in areas where the private sector has a good reputation or fills some particular niche. And then there's the specialist schools for e.g. music, drama, sport etc. And the boarding schools. Lower in areas where there's not such a demand for places or where the population's been falling.

@geography21 I'm sorry to hear about the situation in Scotland. We forget how lucky we are in London. At least there is choice here: even if it can be a bit illusory due to house prices, travelling somewhere else is often an option due to density of population.

Given that labour want to take back the Scottish parliament in 2026, their VAT policy although popular here in general is clueless as to the completely different SEN system here or the impact on Edinburgh.

Really shows all the things the SNP bang on about with regard to Westminster not understanding Scottish issues...which is such an easy bar to hit - they could've talked to some of their Scottish labour colleagues.

It really looks like a back of a fag packet policy here.

So public sector pay (teachers) and council funding in 5 big problems:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1e5pw1qpx8o

And only 40 kids have what labour thinks is the equivalent 'CSP'.

The most recent census data shows there are 1,318 pupils in Scotland with CSPs.

Hmmm must've been a bad article, it's in any case not the EHCP equivalent, but hopefully it does the job labour are trying to use it for, to exempt VAT on fees the govt pay for.

Todays Kings speach

Children's Wellbeing Bill
A bill to raise standards in education and promote children's wellbeing, including measures to remove the exemption from VAT for private school fees, which will enable the funding of six and a half thousand new teachers.
This bill will also require free breakfast clubs in every primary school, limit the number of branded items of uniform and PE kits that a school can require and create a duty on local authorities to have and maintain Children Not in School registers.

Gambling is subject to tax but not VAT.

Thought I would share this from Parliament TV today. Munira Wilson, the Lib Dem spokesperson for education, says that there are 100,000 children with SEND in private schools who do not have an EHCP. My own child is one of these 100,000.

parliamentlive.tv/event/index/4572eaf4-7c72-4b15-90bf-42fb9f6c01b2?in=15:03:55

Thank you. Mine too. There are potentially several points of legal challenge.

If you can show that your child genuinely has SEND that a state school cannot cater for (and believe me, most state schools' SEND provision is pathetic) and your child has an EHCP, the COUNCIL will cover ALL school fees at a nominated private school, and not necessarily at a specialist SEN school.
An ECHP is very difficult to get without legal help, so the best way to achieve this is to hire an educational solicitor. The cost is about £20k, about the cost of one year's private fees.
So, for the cost of one year's fees, you can get an ECHP for your child with SEN and also have the rest of your child's private schooling paid for by the council.
I know a good number of parents who have saved themselves about £100k in school fees that way.
So you can save not only the vat, but also the entire fees!
I can see a lot more of this happening, so in addition to getting some vat in, the state will be paying a lot more in fees for those who have been priced out and instead choose to spend the money on an educational solicitor.

Not every parent values education and certainly not every parent values education to the same degree. Some parents send their child to school only because it's illegal not to or to get them away from the house.
If government made it optional to attend school many won't.
The welfare state reduces the incentives to build human capital. This grasping for other people's wealth as the means of removing others from poverty instead of creating more of the opportunities that create wealth ie learning skills to drive innovation, duty, hardwork etc.