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.

No, you’re not ‘saving the state money’. You’re entrenching privilege.
No, it’s not a tax on education. It’s a tax on private business. You could have that education for free thanks to a thing called society. If it costs us more to educate more children in the state system, that’s a price worth paying for a more equitable society. Investment in the NHS and more spending to tackle poverty ditto.
This is one of the most progressive things our new government has proposed. Bring it on. Next step abolishing private schools altogether.

I agree with this but draw the different conclusion that improvements in state education should be paid for by an increase of 1% across the board on income tax not just asking the people who won’t be using it to pay 20% extra on their children’s fees. Everyone benefits from a well educated society so this cost should be shared by all. It would also raise a lot more money.

Also disagree with people saying that private schools are businesses. No entity (be it business, charity etc) can continue to exist if making a loss but it doesn’t follow that because private schools don’t operate at a loss they are businesses. They do educate children and are therefore educational institutions- that is their primary mission.

So, if that's not the case, why the hostility towards fee-paying parents?
People literally taking delight in the fact that some of those parents will no longer be able to afford private education?
If it's not about money, then those people really should stop projecting whatever it IS that's making them feel inadequate onto others...

@SugarandSpiceandAllThingsNaice

It's really not that straightforward. There is food which is standard rated (cereal bars, crisps). A chocolate covered biscuit is standard rated, but a chocolate chip cookie is zero rated.

Well, no, not on the breadline. That's frankly ridiculous.
Sorry, I always forget about the amount of pedants on this forum.
Financial hardship = a change in one's financial circumstances (in this case due to added VAT!) that suddenly makes certain outgoings (private school) unaffordable.
If that's not a financial hardship, what else would you call it?

Don't worry, though, I've got the message loud and clear from this thread: 'Dare to do well for yourself and you'll be sneered at!'
Yup, makes total sense...

No one is “literally taking delight” by the fact that some parents can only afford private schools if the tax free gravy train stops.

I am delighted that this means education services will be taxed more fairly than they currently are.

I, and others, think the whinging of those who will be priced out comes from a sense of overblown entitlement. No one is entitled to not pay tax, and especially not someone that right now has disposible income of several thousand £ per month. No one is entitled to private school for their DC.

The poor me, you must be jealous of me to agree with fairer taxes is irritating to say the least.

It’s not like the Tories ever did any tax changes that were fair. The NIC cut plus frozen tax thresholds has actually been a net tax increase for low earners with the middle class benefitting from a net tax cut. And what was said then? Get a better job, make better life choices…and now the middle earners want sympathy now they are being asked to pay their fair share? Hmpf.

I’d call it a financial set back. Hardship implies deprivation.

It's not liking wealthy people winging about money which has already been said. You had no need to 'wait' in the first place!!

I'm referring to the VAT, which is the point of this thread.

Again, I don't have kids in private school but I have friends (who are by no means rich) who do, and I sympathise with their situation.

It's called sarcasm!!

No, not being able to afford private school is really not financial hardship.

And nope, that's not the message. It is: winge about money when you are wealthy to less wealthy people and you'll get short shrift! Especially claiming 'financial hardship' because you can't afford private school when many people can't afford to put the heating on!

But it's not 'wealthy people winging(??) about money'. And if you think it is, you really haven't been paying attention.

The fee-paying parents I know aren't wealthy; they're on modest incomes. These are the ones who will be hit, not 'rich' people. I think they're entitled to a little moan, don't you?

@RilkeanHeart

"If it costs us more to educate more children in the state system, that’s a price worth paying for a more equitable society. "

Socialism used to be about trying to create a more equitable society by helping up the less well off. We can see from this comment that socialism now tries to create a more equitable society by about bringing the better off down in a race to the bottom.

And that is exactly why society and the economy in the UK is on a steady decline.

Don't worry, though, I've got the message loud and clear from this thread: 'Dare to do well for yourself and you'll be sneered at!'

If you were doing that well for yourself, you’d be able to absorb the fee rise. And most parents I know will. It’s not our fault you were so keen to keep up with the Joneses that you signed up for something out of your price range and are now having to cut back spending elsewhere to afford it.

If you’d been honest with yourself about affordability at the time, you wouldn’t be in this mess. Wasn’t the average fee rise 10% last year? And 6% the year before that? This is unaffordable for you because you don’t earn enough, not because Keir Starmer is bringing in VAT.

Personally, I've not come across these people on modest incomes that can afford private schools.

And yes, if they want a moan, fine - they can moan to their friends and fellow modest income but can afford private school peers.

But to whine to others who can't even switch their heating on, or are skipping meals so they can feed their DC? I'm sorry, that's completely tone deaf and obnoxious behaviour.

1dayatatime
I agree that, as you point out, ‘society and the economy in the UK are on a steady decline’. But that’s certainly not down to socialism. Unless
you think the spirit of Clement Attlee was guiding the Tories in their selfish hollowing out of our public services and public realm over the last 14 years.
And yes, I do believe the better-off need to
pay more to help us achieve a more equitable society. Not sure how you think the most vulnerable can possibly be helped otherwise. In a decent society, those with the broadest shoulders should pay more.

Oh that’s a good point, I never realised parents who can’t afford private education didn’t have “innate abilities” and the desire for their children to be “pushed and thrive.” What a wise musing from you, I see this must be the high calibre of human that so passionately supports private education.

I was privately educated due to poor state school choices where I grew up. That in itself is an issue. There should be no poor schools. Abolish private education and focus on excellent education for all. Away with this hideous self-righteous, classist attitude — it is utterly revolting.

Absolutely.

I love all these comments where people compare possessions with a child’s education - just highlights how daft their argument really is and how this just boils down to jealousy.

Which large tutoring schools are below VAT level? That's around 300 / 350 income per day nothing large would be below that, its a small number intentionally to maximise the number of people / businesses that fall into it.

I think the impact of this policy is way overblown.

School fees go up every year anyway. The impact of this tax, in most cases, will be comparable to the difference between taking a subject that has lots of trips as opposed to one that doesn’t - eg. my DC has opted for Geography A-level and the trip (which is more-or-less compulsory for that subject) is about £1,000, paid in instalments. If she was doing say, RS, there would be no such trip.

All 4 of ours went through independent schools in London - now only one left going into 6th firm, This school has said it will do all it can to find ways to not pass the VAT on to parents.

The ‘big name’ day schools such as Westminster, St Paul’s, CLGS, Godolphin and Latymer will sail on, unaffected by this change in VAT status.

Boarding schools I have no experience of, but I imagine they will be the same.

People will just pay the fees through a business or from offshore and avoid tax that way. Or they’ve paid fees ahead, or they don’t really care.

Many (most) are international families or families with the means to offset this kind of thing elsewhere.

I think the tax will impact the smaller, non-selective private schools in ‘middle England’ (if I can call it that). But even then, schools are not going to sit back and lose all their customers. They will find ways to offset the additional costs if families are pulling out in droves.

In some cases, sadly, it will be bursary programmes that will be hit hardest.

For instance, at the school DD went to, the basic fees rose from about £7k per term to £9.5k per term in the time she was there. As I said, fees rise year-on-year anyway and parents are well used to this. However, a distinct ethos at this school was its bursary programme, with around 25% of pupils receiving bursaries (around half of those being full bursaries). And these bursaries did not just cover fees. They cover everything in the school - trips, music / other tuition, uniform, you name it. A section of the school fees people were paying funded the bursary scheme and it worked well. 1500 children sat 11 plus for 120 places going into Year 7. The school wanted the must able pupils, regardless of background or income. GCSE results were / are around 95% 9-7. The school was far more diverse than your average suburban comp / ethnically, culturally and socio-economically. The school won national awards for improving social mobility It remains to be seen what will happen as a result if the VAT changes - will plans to expand the bursary programme be stalled? Will fees rise a lot or will the increase be negligible? Will the school make savings elsewhere - eg. not run the Saturday programmes they run for underprivileged children in the local London borough? Probably the school will just carry in as it is.

It would be so good to be able to have a discussion about this subject with no mention of jealousy or the politics of envy. They really are just ways of shutting down conversation and inhibiting any introspection. The issue of privilege, both bought and unbought, and rigidly entrenched class structures are such a barrier to any real change or even movement in society. And we do need to find a way to make things fairer and better. Because nothing's worked so far!

A hike of 20% in one year is obviously more than usual. If you had a hit of the same with a tax you’d probably feel it.

Someone else paying is of course desirable. Not that it will do much, maybe damage overall and just get paying going like this.

I genuinely want to know why i should care, I'm still not seeing a reason and you haven't been able to provide one - you're the one who volunteered a nonsense answer of "because I'm nice". So i wanted you to have another go, because so far all this thread has done is made me even more sure that Labour are doing a good thing. I can only surmise you can't actually come up with a reason why working class people should care that rich people might have to pay a bit more tax on a luxury.

Also, it's 2024, aren't we past the whole idea that women have to be nice to everyone all the time?

P/Schools will be able to claim back about 5% of the 20%, they can then cut their budgets/increase class sizes slightly.

R4 did a piece on this, 10% seemed more realistic and thats without any funding rising.

All of the above has happened in the state sector for many years now.

Assuming the amount raised is correct, this would be around 8 billion over the course of a 5 year parliament.

For context, £4bn is the amount needed to fix the dentist/nhs contract and provide us all with reasonably priced dentistry.

There are just too many things wrong with the country not to have VAT on what is essentially a luxury item, if you don't agree, where should this 8bn come from?