Yes of course it does - but if you had the money to help your child would you?
Or would you decide that your ideology is to help all or no one so you would let your child suffer?
If you know what it is like to have a child suffer in the state education system - then surely you would be the exact person to understand why people move their children private? If you know how hard you have to fight for an ECHP - then you know exactly the reason why some parents have moved their children to private with fighting.
If you won lotto would you spend it on moving your child to safer place or would you spend it on a holiday or home improvements?
I suspect if you are the type of parent to fight for an ECHP than you are a parent who puts their children's needs first and I do think you would spend a lotto win on helping your child whatever that looks like.
As you know an ECHP is something not given out easily - there is a long drawn out process with the parent/s needing to be heavily involved.
My son, with SEN needs, is in an amazing government high school - they've been wonderful with his SEN. My daughter was in a state school which was horrible for SEN - her mental health was suffering and she had developed severe OCD. Where we live there are not a lot of spaces in state high schools to move a child to - we had her on a list for other state schools for over a year before we found a private school who agreed to take her so we moved her.
My daughter is in year 13 now - we can afford the vat increase for two terms but if the vat had of been around when we moved her I am not sure what we would have done.
Yes we are lucky enough to have been able to avoid private school for her. But we rent now and I do wonder if the state school system had been better geared for her needs if we could have saved that money towards a house deposit.
I want your child to have the best chance in life just as I want everyone's children to have to have the best chance in life - and I would be happy to pay more taxes for this to happen. In fact we donate and continue to donate money towards our children's state schools because we believe this.
But private school parents are not the reason the education system is underfunded and this tax has unfairly picked them off as a cheap trick to win votes. State school parents (of which I am one too) are angry at the lack of school funding and so they should be - but the government has been very clever at deflecting this anger to be directed at private school parents rather than where it should be directed at - the government.