I genuinely want pro-VAT people to answer these two questions

[Seenandheard]

(1) Do you realise that a private school child saves the tax payer/government thousands of pounds per year by not taking up a space in state school? Not to mention the space in the classroom/competition for places? (Do you care about this point or gloss over it in your minds?!)

(2) Do ypu realise that taxing education is illegal in the EU?

Yes or no to both points, please.

I do not want reams of uninformed angry opinions. I don't want this to turn into a multi page thread/bun fight. I just want to understand whether people realise these two points, really, truly understand them. Because it seems to me that there is a mentality of "they're getting a tax break" (WRONG) or "they're taking something away from my child" (WRONG) or "they can afford it so they can spread their wealth a bit" (I'm not going into the fact that my family spend more on taxes than Nordic countries, who have a far, far higher standard of living. We give so much, get almost nothing in return- but apparently we need to give more. More. More.)

I think my deep rooted anger here is to do with people's attitudes and uninformed opinions more than the policy itself. I need to know if people are aware of the facts.

Is it definitely going to be ringfenced for education? And specifically how will it improve education, in terms of impact at a local level. For example, what concrete change would expect to see in a small primary, or a large secondary? How will impact be measured? It just all feel very vague propaganda.

I don’t get why there is so much virile for private school parents - I mean the reality is that it’s been the government who has failed to invest in government schools - not private school parents. Labour has done a great pr job of getting government school parents to be angry at private school parents - when really they should be angry at the government for failing them and their children.

No, I am not asking other businesses to pay more. State schools need better funding but that should be raised from general taxation. Better state schools benefit everyone so everyone should pay.

Where is your evidence that VAT on food has lead to the closure of hospitality businesses? The other things you list, yes, but not VAT.

The point I am making is that posters on this thread keep saying that schools should absorb the costs but the only realistic way for that is for people to lose their jobs. I don’t pretend to care about jobs. Some support staff at my DC’s school have already lost their jobs and, whatever you may think, myself and other parents do care about this.

Hmm define ‘financial difficulties’. I don’t think many people facing genuine financial difficulties are privately educating their children…

So I’m not allowed to be concerned about it? I don’t have any kids at private school, but I am planning on getting my kids through uni without any student debt. Why won’t a future government decide to tax fees at e.g. Russell League universities? I expect there is an argument to be made that there is less social mobility at such institutions than some of the newer universities.

That National Student Survey again shows all one needs to know about some Russell Group universities.

From a PP on this thread:

"too many people on this group are so jealous of the people who can afford private education, a couple of cars, foreign holidays etc etc while they are stuck in a rut living on dole money, having never made the effort to better themselves!"

But of course they're never entitled, patronising, or rude.

Despite virtually every single thread on this topic going the same way they just can't accept that this isn't important to the majority.

They seem to think that if the just explain it in a slightly different way or use a different narrative us plebs will finally come to our senses and support the cause.

I'm not sure what my favourite attempt at persuading the masses has been so far. Probably either ither the thread that warned that state school parents would be priced out of their family homes by the influx of former private school families or the one that suggested anyone who supported this wanted to punish SEN kids.

The double standards of a lot of people on this thread. Every now and then a poster pops up to tell us that her DC have been offered a full scholarship to a great private school and they don't know what to do about it. Almost everyone tells them how lucky they are and what a great opportunity it is. Such hypocrisy.

I think the majority of us were already angry at the former goverment but incessant complaining about how unfair something that effects the privileged few, by the privileged few, when millions are genuinely struggling isn't usually a great unifier.

I'd also imagine the Venn diagram of "people who vote tory" and "parents who send their children to private school" is very close to being a circle.

So you think that the impact on children with SEN is bullshit? Munira Wilson doesn’t. She spoke about it in the HOC today.

Yes and yes.
Private education should be illegal.
We should be more like Finland.

I just wonder if private schools parents realise the level of privilege this lends to their children and how large class sizes are in state school.
they might be doing us a favour by not adding another child to the already bulging class of 30 but the advantages of private school are immense. The contacts you make of friends whose parents have high powered well paying jobs, who might give you work experience. The small class sizes to develop your wider understanding of the subject. The extracurricular opportunities are abundant. This, in addition to already having parents who actually care about their child’s education sets the students up for huge advantages. I am obviously generalising but this is true of most private schools.
Taxing them is a drop in the ocean to close the gap.

OK, let's try an analogy based upon a real life situation.

I've just got an NHS Hearing Aid. It's cost me absolutely nothing. With this, I will receive free batteries (they run out pretty quickly - once a week is good going, apparently), free retubing, free adjustments, free domes. I'm also having a free MRI in order to eliminate malign reasons for the onesided tinnitus and hearing loss.

It sort of connects to my phone, but doesn't have an anti tinnitus programme, doesn't screen out electromagnetic interference, isn't a colour of my choice, doesn't match either my skin tone or my hair colour and I've found it annoying at times so far. But I can tell the difference when I pick up the phone at work or if somebody speaks to me on my left side, especially when there's noise on my right - meaning I wouldn't be able to hear the person without it. It also picks up somebody speaking to an audience (along with the mutterings and rustlings of the rest of the audience), although it doesn't have a T loop and I can only turn the volume up or reduce the sensitivity by pressing a tiny button on the back of it to engage 'restaurant' mode or going through my phone.

I could, if I wanted, go to a private audiologist and get a hearing aid with AI processing, full wireless connectivity, automatic noise cancellation to counteract the general hubbub of work or traffic, rechargeable, the colour of my choice and fully customisable to multiple situations in addition to the AI automatic adaptation to the sound type/level and full directionality in the microphone spread pattern. It'd cost me several thousand pounds - and would incur VAT at standard rate - as would all the additional paraphernalia, such as a desk microphone for meetings, a portable mic for lectures, something to connect to the TV or even a TV that has bluetooth connectivity for hearing aids (been looking at those recently, they work so that DP could still hear the TV at a normal volume whilst I'd also get the signal direct into a HA, rather than just being a headphone setting that would switch the main sound off).

I can hear well enough to function with the free one, but I could make a choice to purchase a vastly superior specification HA privately and, for that luxury of having a somewhat better hearing aid than the one the NHS provides (as it doesn't magically turn my hearing back to normal, nothing can ever do that), I'd have to pay VAT. If my hearing deteriorates so that I would have to pay 20% more for a different one or I need a second aid for the other ear, I'd either have to pay the extra or go back to the NHS for two completely free hearing aids.

Nobody's screaming from the rooftops about how disgustingly unfair it is that a private, higher specification hearing aid is expensive and carries VAT - I'd be told to stop complaining and either take the free NHS one or pay the price including VAT for the private aid. As for the HA compatible TV, obviously nobody's going to say of course I should get a free Fire TV or a Sony, for example, off the NHS. If I want that luxury, I'm going to have to pay for it.

Being able to hear is fairly important in life in my experience - if somebody is profoundly Deaf from birth and BSL is their first language, they could very well differ in opinion, as they are perfectly entitled to do - and as such, the NHS gives me the right to

1. an Audiology referral,
2. a hearing test (in fairness, these are zero rated in the private sector)
3. an aid and
4. all the ongoing consumables and support

for absolutely zero cost unless I stick the hearing aid through a 40 degree whites wash or the cat eats it (when it'll cost me £70 for a replacement - and some pretty hefty vet fees if the blasted animal consumes a battery in the process).

Having the fanciest version may well be better subjectively and maybe objectively - but it's not free, it carries VAT and is a want, not a need.

I don't expect you or anybody else who has the sort of income that makes private school fees even a fleeting possibility to care that I've got a free hearing aid instead of the fancy spangles one. I very much doubt that you're gleeful I can't have the fancy spangles and telly. Why would you? It's irrelevant to you and your lifestyle.

Why do you expect me to care about you?

Personally for me, what pissed me off is the amount of private school parents who have been posting incessantly on Mumsnet to tell us all why we should care about this, it's not fair on us, we are poor really, we are barely getting by, we can't go on a foreign holiday if they bring in the VAT... Playing the victim.

No. Stop. If you are choosing to pay fees at private school, you're not poor. I don't get why I'm supposed to care if you can't afford to pay a tax on a luxury product and your child has to attend an... Urgh .. state school. The same state schools that 93% of the population have to slum it at. Am i meant to be crying and beating my chest for you because you don't think state schools are good enough for your kids? Or because labour are closing tax loopholes that you want to continue using?

It's a tiny, tiny niche issue which affects a minority of people but you'd think they were proposing something that affects everyone the amount of threads that there have been.

It's the moaning private school parents acting like victims on Mumsnet that turned me from "eh, don't really care" to "get it done, starmer".

@Shaketherombooga

"Taking away tax breaks isn’t punishing. It’s just being fair. The rest of us mugs pay VAT on services, why on earth should private school customers be any different."

I think we are getting to the heart of the question. The current VAT exemption on private school fees is not a tax break. Currently part of the income tax that private school parents pay goes towards state education even though they don't use that state education service in the same way that childless couples do. If private schools were abolished tomorrow morning then the state would have to either find additional tax revenue to pay for these new state pupils or alternatively spend the same money but in more pupils creating a lower quality state education.

Education is currently exempt from VAT in the same way that food and healthcare is.
Now private healthcare benefits the wealthy although the wealthy pay income taxes that support the NHS.
Would you support VAT on private healthcare?

Equally the wealthy can afford higher quality food such as say fresh orange juice over concentrate. Would you support VAT on more expensive higher quality food that the wealthy predominantly buy?

It becomes apparent that this is a punitive tax targeting the wealthy who can afford better services or products. It is also apparent that many posters would prefer that everyone lives the same lifestyle (car, house, holidays, schools etc) all in the name of equality.

Like many private school parents I went to state school myself and have a DC in state school. I fully understand the size of classes in some state schools.

As far as job opportunities go, the private school factor is rather over-egged. Nowadays, many of the biggest and most prestigious employers operate blind recruitment processes. Diversity has moved on and companies monitor whether applicants and employees have parents who attended university, the type of school they went to and even whether they had free school meals (I was asked that question on a diversity survey recently) because they want to make sure that their workforces have social diversity.

@NeverDropYourMooncup medical products are often VAT exempt if you can show you need them due to a disability, there is a form you can complete which the company you buy from then submits to HMRC.
Sorry to ruin your analogy, but I thought that info might be helpful

Well no secondary school entrants this year are some of those born in 2012, her school year is a high birth year, that's my point.

The fallout from affordability is also across all years so if 2012 is the largest year senior all years may be affected with larger numbers.

It's all may happen until it does but anyone knee jerk has handed in their notice last year so will have started to apply for school places.

None of this changes the outcome though. If it’s a poor policy with low £ funding or even negative that’ll still happen even if forum posts got to you

Not hearing aids or TVs that work with them, though.

I'm really sorry because I know it's just a typo... but you mean vitriol.

Virile takes us into completely different territory!

@SarahJane796 absolutely i agree, it's a drop in the ocean that is the education budget, so small that I doubt any state school parents will notice a meaningful improvement in their child's education directly attributable to this policy

Oh well. The proof will be in the pudding.

I'm looking forward to it, and seeing which other tax loopholes labour will be closing.

1. Yes, but I don’t think it will have as much impact as people using it as an excuse against VAT say. To me it’s quite simple - there is no genuine reason why private schools should be exempt from VAT - they are NOT charities!
2. Yes of course. But we are not part of the EU and our education system is completely different to most of EU.

I don’t think you would be told to stop complaining and if you started a thread about this I’m sure you would get a lot of support. I’ve seen threads in the past about how some drugs for chronic conditions are exempt from prescription charges and others aren’t and the consensus is generally that it is unfair.

However, I also think your analogy is flawed because there are state schools with better facilities and educational outcomes that some
private schools. So what is your definition of “luxury”?