Would you be prepared to pay more tax to get better state education for all?

[happygardening]

Any other suggestions welcome to ensure that all where ever they live and whatever their background have access to education of the highest quality.

I can understand why some people, in the.name of social equality, would want to ban private schools. But how is that going to improve failing schools?

If private schools was to be banned I would take the fees saved and buy next door to a highly ranked state school. Some (naive) posters seem to think that I would move to their neighbourhood and finally their DS would have naice MC activities at their school

I suppose it depends whether you think of taxation as an installment plan or an insurance policy......

@Tas You want a school to be allowed to throw out those who misbehave? Fine. I do too. Do you know the prerequisite for that? EXTRA MONEY. Because the kids have to go somewhere - typically a PRU - and they cost a fortune (rightly so). Many kids who are managed or thrown out of schools have complex needs and good PRUs are designed to address those needs and draw the best out of the poor kids who find themselves there. But they cost money and there isn't enough of it.

So in fact, the thing that you want is one of the things that needs money chucking at it.

Wot Russian sed.

RussiansOnTheSpree

Then I'd rather go to a selective private where that's a given... and if they didn't exist, do what TifflsKool said. Move. Even if that meant moving to another country.

Well, that's the problem really, isn't it? Society does not really want to tackle the fact that those "it" considers least worthy of having money and time spent on them are those who most need the money, time and attention. Those people are just supposed to vanish themselves away altogether and instead very inconveniently get under everyone else's feet. We could always find ourselves a nice big island and dump all our unwanted on it with a few guards to make sure they don't escape - and maybe do atomic bomb trials nearby. Or we could create gated communities in seas of crime and corruption and live like people in Moscow or Johannesburg.

rabbitstew

I actually don't mind the American gated communities... shrugs

I don't mind sending DC to private (saving the government money), and the government bringing back the Assisted Places Scheme on tax payers' expense. I know people who went to private schools that way. They were very intelligent, and their schools - no matter how much money you threw at them - would never have offered them what they got.

Tasmania - I don't remember referring to American gated communities . Mind you, if you think they are situated within seas of crime and corruption, then that isn't the greates advert for the American dream, imo.

I agree with rabbitstew.

The problems within the state education system reflect the wider problems of a deeply divided society. More funding, while always welcome, would not address why large sections of the population feel so uninvested in the education of their children.

I would much rather support the continuation of Sure Start (funding has been slashed) but more importantly deal with the basics: ensure people are paid a realistic 'living wage' and live in decent, affordable housing. These are the absolute fundamentals of a civilised society and as more and more people live without them a generation is being raised who have no stake in society and consequently see education as meaningless. As this group increases state education in whole areas of the country is being swamped by the accompanying social problems of living below the poverty line - and these pupils punch well above their weight in terms of disruption. You only need 20% of kids/families to not care and the school has a massive problem which then impacts on every other pupil.

We need to tackle the widening inequality in society - higher taxes maybe but I would first like to see those evading and avoiding (big business) paying their fair share and this money used to even the playing-field between those at the top and those at the bottom.

I was including Sure Start and other initiatives in my "yes" to increased tax to improve education.

@Emphatically Evasion and avoidance are two very very different things. The key to increasing the tax take from business and individuals is changing the law root and branch. This is something the current government do not wish to do. They instead favour tacit (and sometimes vocal) support for people like uncut when they target companies which are not their 'friends' and 'solutions' which essentially involve corporates like Starbucks bunging the treasury a bit of charity money. This is completely discretionary and can be recouped by the corporates in question through fiddling with pay rates etc - which can have an overall negative impact on public funding.

I agree with you that the poverty gap is appalling. Today's child poverty figures (well, I saw them reported today, I've been out of the news loop a bit recently, I don't know when they were released) make sobering reading.

emphaticmaybe

I'm all for decent affordable housing. But with this, I mean affordable from income - not benefits. You'll find a lot of people would choose not to work if that means they'll lose their benefits.

However, I don't actually think that lot of people's socialist utopia is doable economically. Unless, of course, we start living in sort of a kibbutz community - where no doubt you'll find everyone will be made to work hard to benefit the wider community... I applaud that.

emphaticmaybe

The trouble with threatening big businesses with big tax bills is that they are globally mobile now. Meaning they can leave the country, resulting in ahuge job losses which benefits no one.

I believe tax evasion is illegal while avoidance is legal but can be morally dubious - is that right?

I saw those figures too Russians - it makes me so angry.

No no no no no.

Stop the waste first.

Tasmania - large corporations do need stable, financially viable, reasonably democratic states to flourish. If western nations worked together on tax evasion I think the percentage of companies moving their enterprises to say somewhere like Somalia,would be pretty limited. I agree that the 'working together' is a pipe dream though.

There is no morally dubious. There is legal, and NOT. A company prepared to do things that aren't legal is a completely different kettle of fish than a company which is prepared to put some effort into walking the line of legality but never crossing it. That is after all what directors are generally legally charged to do (there are exceptions for eg directors of trading subs of charities, for example). There's nothing morally dubious about seeking to reduce a company's (or an individual's) tax bill so long as it is legal (I think some people may be confused by eg the Jimmy Carr scheme which was possibly not actually legal). But the law cannot cope any more. There comes a point when circumstances change so radically from those envisaged when laws were first created that no amount of fiddling with them can do the job. We need to start with a clean sheet of paper. But it would be hard. And it would piss people off. And it would be hard. And there would be little political cover in the short term for the people who made the tough decisions. And it would have to be done at the least in consultation with the rest of Europe.And it would be hard. So much easier to fiddle and tinker, or set the tame anarchists against big names like Starbucks and Amazon while ignoring the real problem. Did I mention it would be hard?

It's just appalling if we feel we can't tackle big businesses seeming inability to pay tax because they might move abroad. Tax evasion by big business and individuals accounts for far more money lost to the treasury than benefit fraud- but never seems to make the front pages.....

Thanks for explaining Russians,

No seeker. Tax avoidance - which is legal - is the bigger 'problem' (issue is, I think, a better word really). And the Tories like it that way. And in the main the businesses in question often are abroad anyway. The issue is not where companies are located it's how the law deals with transnational business.

And obviously another issue is that every man and his dog think they understand the issues, very few do, and this allows the tories to do their usual smoke and mirrors look into the eyes not the hand thing and get away with more than they might otherwise.

At least big businesses contribute I Society be it through employment which is taxes or through the provision of goods and services which is again taxed. As for those dependent on benefit...

@emphatic Basically, it would be very hard to sort out. And nobody has the intestinal fortitude to try. Labour certainly don't, sadly. They'd like to do it, but don't dare (also, it would be very hard). The Libs and the Tories don't even want to do it. And that actually has nothing to do with the fact that it would be very hard. :(

@socareless It is absolutely true that many of the currently most publicly excoriated businesses do indeed contribute to society in many many ways, including as you say providing jobs, providing affordable goods and services etc. They often contribute to charity too. I do have a bit of an issue with the split between flu-time living wage jobs and part time jobs where the employees still end up having to claim working tax credit. But again those businesses could argue, and they wouldn't be entirely wrong, that structurally this is the way we want it in this country.

There are an awful lot of companies behaving an awful lot worse than Starbucks and Amazon. But uncut don't seem to notice. Strange that.

emphaticmaybe

There's a limit as to how many countries can work together. Don't forget - it is a competitive world out there. They don't even have to move to developing countries.Loads of "smaller" financial companies have already moved their HQs from London to Switzerland due to UK tax where they will find highly able graduates from all over Europe willing to relocate who also have foreign language skills galore (unlike in the UK). Companies like that employ loads of internationals here in the UK (who pay their taxes), so it doesn't really matter where they are...

I don't think some schools need to improve due to lack of funds.
I don't pay tax but speaking on behalf of my dh and ds1 who do, they would not be happy to pay more tax.
We are H.edders as well so no longer use the system.