So, Keir Starmer is intending to remove charitable status

[BadgerB]

He intends to use the money raised to "shake-up" the State schools.

Has he thought this through - the number of children whose parents just about manage fees, who will then transfer their kids to state schools.

How many? How much will this cost? And how soon can the necessary expansion be effected?

Of course, the really rich will be able to dig deeper into their pockets

Best policy I've heard from Labour for some time. Private schools should not have charitable status.

@Babdoc

Sittinginthesand, you seem woefully ignorant about the charitable activities of village churches, many of which would be unknown to outsiders. We do not boast or advertise our charitable deeds. My own tiny village church paid to rebuild three houses destroyed in the Nepal earthquake, supports a group of poor subsistence farmers in Malawi to send their kids to high school, collects for the local food bank, supports Christian Aid, funds a missionary who is a consultant obstetrician for poor rural women in Pakistan, runs a drop in cafe for local pensioners, etc etc. I doubt any of the local atheists know about any of it. But at least they aren’t sneering at us on online.

This is taking it off the topic of the thread but I want to say that for many years I was a member of such a church that did amazing deeds.

Well the parishioners did amazing deeds. The parishioners volunteered for the food bank and donated their time and their food whilst the Church just put it all in the newsletter. The parishioners raised funds for local and international charities to support a school or a community. The parishioners volunteered to run tea groups, support groups and activities and summer holiday clubs, whilst all the Church provided was a room as the volunteers even brought the tea and cake. (Plus the groups were charged for, even if only a few pounds, but it all went to the Church).

The Church took in our financial tithes to give to the diocese, to pay for the church fabric, to pay for the ministers and to fund the services. The only donations to charities the Church made were ones that were to extend the Christian message through missionary projects at home and abroad.

Charitable deeds are to give out and want nothing back, if looking to create more Christians, that's an aim of the Church, not a charitable expression.

And I say all this as a Christian but an ex-Church goer.
Whilst the Christian faith is founded in service and love, there is a distinction between the church of His people and the deeds they do in His name, and the 'Church' (with a big C).

Sorry, but not sorry.

The school we use has an excellent range of bursaries including over 100%

Does that mean they pay you to send your child there?

@tilder

The school we use has an excellent range of bursaries including over 100%

Does that mean they pay you to send your child there?

Yes they give extra for uniform and other extras.

I don’t know upper limit but they help out with more than just fees.

@tilder

The school we use has an excellent range of bursaries including over 100%

Does that mean they pay you to send your child there?

It means full fees, plus lunches,, uniform allowance, maybe transport to school and some trips. And you can sometimes make a case for certain paid extras too, if the pupil has a particular talent

I agree. A few more like this and I might vote Labour. But I doubt it. I would have sent mine to private school but couldn't afford it at the time. So we moved to an area with better schools.

@FinallyHere

If we were starting today, would anyone argue that schools which allowed those who can pay for private education deserved a subsidy from taxation?

I really don't think so.

There needs to be some sensible thinking around how to get from here to there.

Would love to hear from anyone who thinks private education really does deserve tax subsidies.

Lots of people on this thread appear to think so. They are deluded.

Private education is about buying an often lifetime advantage at the expense of others. Nothing charitable about it. Certainly not deserving of a tax break.

Where would such breaks end? What about those with no children? Blended families? Retired people?

Nope. If the state offers something and you don't or can't take up the offer, thats just how it goes. I dont get a tax break if i don't use the NHS for a year.

OP didn't return. Anyone else wondering if this is a sock puppet thread started by a Tory insider to see how it was going down among us ordinaries?

Yep I’ve been thinking it’s at least as likely that Boris will decide to do this. It’d be popular in the red wall I think.

@Viviennemary apparently Keir starter polling equally as popular as Boris for the first time today, so I guess people don’t like his handling fuel delivery crisis or do like Keir’s decisions re state schools?

Babdoc - I’m not woefully ignorant, thank you. I’ve been closely involved in 4 rural parishes - as in one of the ‘ladies’ that does the coffee. I do the flowers and clean our church, as did my mother and grandmother (different parishes). My dad is a church warden. The vast majority of the money we raise goes back to the church, we struggle to meet our parish share, none of the parishes I know do the things you mention. It tends to be the big city churches that do. We do raise some money for other causes but that is eg a garden sale to raise money for hospice, entirely organised and funded by the parishioners and nothing to do with the church. When COVID happened the first communication we had from the diocese was suggestions of how we could continue to fundraise for the church (including writing to parishioners asking for donations), not a word of how the church could support these same parishioners! Totally off topic I realise, but the idea that the Church is much more than a club annoys me, and I don’t see how it is a charity.

[quote Placido]@Viviennemary apparently Keir starter polling equally as popular as Boris for the first time today, so I guess people don’t like his handling fuel delivery crisis or do like Keir’s decisions re state schools?[/quote]
His popularity has not improved. Boris has gone down, Keir Starmer hasn't gone up. So this is likely to be about the fuel problem.

I'm in my 50s - Labour have been banging on about this and abolishing state schools since I was a small child, It's not a vote winner. The Brits aren't hugely motivated by the politics of envy. The only time a Lab govt has won in my lifetime is when they dropped this. There are SO MANY other issues on which Labour could be setting out a stand and they are choosing this and trans rights to be their causes - it's truly tragic

@ForeverbyJudyBlume

I'm in my 50s - Labour have been banging on about this and abolishing state schools since I was a small child, It's not a vote winner. The Brits aren't hugely motivated by the politics of envy. The only time a Lab govt has won in my lifetime is when they dropped this. There are SO MANY other issues on which Labour could be setting out a stand and they are choosing this and trans rights to be their causes - it's truly tragic

I agree with all the issues that are ripe for gaining the public support. They could have won huge numbers of supporters/votes had they tackled the 3 million excluded from Covid support, but they couldn't even be bothered to learn to understand the issues, so made just a token half-hearted feeble attempt at criticising the govt in the commons and the media, and then quickly gave up. That was 3 million votes up for grabs and they just couldn't be bothered to properly challenge the government's unfair and biased illogical exclusions.

@OhCrumbsWhereNow

A lot of the private schools will be more than happy to ditch the charitable status - means they can also ditch all the sharing of facilities and outreach stuff they have to do in order to justify it.

A bigger issue is going to be the VAT...

All those private schools will now be able to reclaim all the VAT they have paid over the last 3-8 years. That's going to be one massive bill for the government to have to fund.

They really haven't thought this through very well.

This. although just losing charitable status will not enable them to reclaim the VAT as they don't charge VAT because education is an exempt supply whether or not you have charitable status .

Private schools already pay millions in VAT, all those capital projects suffer VAT . What schools can't do is charge VAT but if they could then they would be able to reclaim all of that VAT .

Frankly this is a complete white elephant, many independent schools would be quite happy to lose charitable status anyway. Its a very complex legal situation as charitable assets are held in trust and most schools do not make an income surplus so would not pay corporation tax anyway

Nothing charitable about it

According to the law in England, the provision of education is a charitable aim. It's a legal definition.

And presumably something Labour is intending to change.

But I would like to see how they propose to make this change - a lot of other charities rely on this charitable aim for some or all of their activities, and I would not want to see unintended consequences

“The Brits aren’t hugely motivated by the politics of envy.” You sure? I thought that’s exactly what immigrant hate was all about. Fantastic winner time and again, sadly.

@ForeverbyJudyBlume hear hear (similar vintage here!). I’d add that calling Tories “scum” is not likely to encourage them to change their vote come the next election. But we digress……

The Brits aren’t hugely motivated by the politics of envy.

I hope you’re right (and mn isn’t reflective)

Why doesn’t Starmer just say ‘Labour will abolish private school’ and have done with it.
Fees are increasing all the time putting private schools beyond the reach of more and more people.
This will make private schools even more expensive so more will close which is what the Labour Party wants.
If private schooling becomes untenable the rich public schools, viz. Eton, Harrow, Winchester etc will go abroad.
I’m sure the Labour Party would love to stop that happening but I’m not sure how they’ll do it.

I hope you’re right (and mn isn’t reflective)

Again, I've been on MN since it was a field ... I've now seen several MN elections and know that - just like Twitter - it is completely unreflective of the wider world

And yes, calling Tories scum isn't a vote winner either. I'm not a Tory, but I despair of Labour and how wrong they get it every time.

I’m in two minds about this based on my experiences locally. I do think there has to be some toughening up of what charitable status means.

There are a number of large boarding schools near me and they do benefit the community. Both do lots of bursaries and support the local area. My daughter does swimming lessons at one of the pools as do many other children. There is a lot of sports clubs, schools, societies that get a huge amount of benefit.

On the other hand… there is a prep in my village that adds nothing. Very few children from the village go as the state primary is excellent which means v heavy use of cars (and some appalling dangerous driving) and parents that are not really from the local area.

I would very much be in favour of the prep losing its charitable status but probably not the two senior schools. I suspect the picture is quite nuanced across different schools.

I would not be in favour of vat on school fees. That feels quite nuclear and would put pressure on the state schools as a percentage would move. Also it would be that they became even more elite.

Jay Rayner has written quite extensively about the charity status of schools in his area and really opened my eyes to how they exploit public finances.

twitter.com/jayrayner1/status/1367126598152048646?s=21

www.jayrayner.co.uk/news/dulwichcollege/

Also it would be that they became even more elite

Bunnycat this is what I find so odd about Starmer’s proposal. If the fees go up then private schooling will only be for the very rich as opposed to the rich.

I have a SEN child at a private school because the local state ones (which I pay for by my taxes) couldn't meet their needs. Going there for DC isn't purchasing an advantage, it's giving them a level playing field with a NT child in a state school and keeping them out of CAMHS. But we have to pay, though a slightly reduced rate, and we remortgaged our (tiny) semi to do it.

If the fees go up by 20% we are totally stuffed and so is DC.

There's a lot of comments up the thread about other institutions that "need" to lose their charitable status too.

If every charity which someone disagreed with the objectives of were to lose its status, there wouldn't be any left. But if you remove e.g. churches' status, what about the debt help they provide? Foodbanks? Toddler clubs? Other support for local residents? Buildings for youth groups such as Scouts and Guides? It may be that the ideological side will never/can never appeal to all, but the good they do that is linked to donations (which are going to drop precipitously due to the current climate anyway) may also suffer.

There are bigger issues than the headlines. As ever...