Doubts grow over Labour’s VAT plan for private schools

[Blanketyre]

Article in the Observer here:
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2024/oct/05/doubts-grow-over-labours-vat-plan-for-private-schools

I must say they've gone very quiet on it.

@cardibach sure. But you’ve not said how this will make state schools better?

Reality is that the state sector will remain the same. It needs far more than ripping off lots of hard working parents trying to give their children a good education. If the VAT goes ahead, in a couple of years you’ll have to accept it’s had no change.

Well, I don’t do that. However, many of the threads lately clearly are started by Tories and responded to by a mix of voters. Criticising a policy? Probs not Tory. Popping up to criticise everything, including more than a few invented things, probs a Tory.

I’m not really expecting it to have much impact on state schools in and of itself. If the state system remains the same I’ll be surprised and disappointed though - I expect a raft of other policies alongside this.
And please quit with the ‘hard working parents trying to give their children a good education’ thing, as though anyone can afford private ed if they just work a bit harder. It’s nonsense and you know it. Every child deserves a good education, and the state should be doing its best to ensure that happens.

@cardibach totally agree that every child should have a great education. Stopping children who are receiving a good education in order to try and make the state sector better isn’t the way to do it, though. As you say, far more policies need to be in place and education needs to be prioritised. Sadly that isn’t going to happen - or is extremely unlikely - so the only result of the VAT is to make even more children have a poor education. Where’s the sense in that?

Private schools aren’t the only way to have a good education even now.
Nobody is stopping children going to private schools - the VAT is a drop in the ocean of fee rises.

@Didimum ‘It’s like talking to a brick wall at this point’. 😂😂 you are correct.

It’s painful. Clearly you have no interest in listening to researched and evidenced views that don’t suit your constructed personal narrative. You’re not unusual in that.

No it isn't. Annual fee rise of 1k we can deal with. 3-4K rise on top of that 1K we can't deal with. 5K might be a drop in the ocean to you, it isn't for us!

@cardibach that doesn’t answer my question as we all know the VAT is a barrier for many people who are already stretched to pay for it.

What a surprise, Labour couldn’t deliver a turd in a toilet bowl - if I handed it to them.

I couldn't afford private ed for my daughter, so the fee itself is far from a drop in the ocean to me. Fees have risen well above inflation for years and years. What was your plan when they rose more?

We budgeted fot 1K per year rises because that's what they have done for 10 years. That's what we used to save up for.

If you can’t afford a luxury then you can’t have it. When people say that about ordinary people not being able to afford a decent place to live but try to say it’s desperately unfair not to be able to afford the cost of something the state provides free at point of use you know there’s a level of selfishness and lack of a grasp of the lives of most people.

But oddly enough also have much higher childhood obesity levels than children from better off backgrounds. I don't understand why we are pushing more food on children during an obesity crisis.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpub/article/PIIS2468-2667(18)30050-1/fulltext

Well Lucky you. Fancy having that much left over after bills. If you can’t afford a luxury, you can’t have it. You’ll have to cut your cloth, as there’ll ordinary people. Or the schools could do that and not pass it on, as state schools have had to do for 14 years.

I can’t even begin with this.
How little knowledge do you actually have?

So why is it not means tested then, it seems to be every child.

A year ago there was a poster that said she is glad VAT is going to be charged for PS. Someone then said well they will still be able to get cheaper holiday aboard as her PS finishes term earlier. The same poster happy about VAT then said they should increase holiday prices a month before to ensure that PS parents pay the same or higher than state school parents.
At that point I realised people can just be so envious and the best thing to do is to make the best of your lot and chuckle at the stupidity of others.

It is every child. Because means testing costs more money than a few pieces of toast and fruit. Just because it’s available to every child doesn’t mean every child has to have it.
Edit: as someone who has worked in schools for decades, many parents won’t apply for free school meals, let alone a new breakfast, because they are too proud. This way their children can still get it.

Well, if that exchange happened it was indeed stupid, for lots of reasons.
Doesn’t say anything about the VAT issue though.

Or the schools could do that and not pass it on, as state schools have had to do for 14 years.

And then in the next post you say "How little knowledge do you actually have?".

Do I need to point out the obvious?

When my oldest DC started private school in 2013 the fees in year 7 of the senior school were £16000 per annum. They are now £22,400.

A quick check on the BOE inflation calculator shows that £16000 in 2013 is £21,803 today.
We have always had steady inflationary increases apart from this year when the fees were increased above inflation to allow for the TPS additional contributions.

If you can “easily afford private school” maybe you should be paying to educate your own children and leaving spaces in your no doubt excellent state comprehensive school for a family who can’t afford it?

You clearly don't understand that it the is largely the type of parent that makes a good school however hard the teachers work.

Well explain it to me - a third of children in the most deprived socioeconomic grouping are overweight or obese. How does the tax payer giving them some cheap cereal help these children - who are highly likely to remain overweight or obese as adults and experience significant ill health and reduced healthy life expectancy as a result. It makes no sense.

https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/health-survey-for-england/2022-part-2/childrens-overweight-and-obesity#key-findings

Our fees rose 8% this year, if they were to rise 28% next year we would definitely move house, invest in property and return to PS at common entrance/secondary, outside of London where it’s cheaper. I think pre prep and prep schools will suffer most, as parents will try and game the system to get best value for money. Many state school parents we know were planning to go PS for secondary, but are unwilling to pay a 28% uplift in fees, so that would likely mean more state school places would be needed and fewer willing to self fund - which was always going to be an own goal.