Private school fees

[studentandparent]

Labour will scrap charitable status on private school fees when next in Government. Anyone got any idea how much this will increase fees?

@red4321 you’re talking about the minority of accountants, lawyers etc at the very top
firms. The median salary for a solicitor is £62k.

Yes, I did qualify it with the accountants and lawyers I know. Which ends up being somewhat self-selecting as they're able to afford private school fees.

People have their reasons for choosing private education for their kids.

But surely if you're a Labour voter you'd still vote for Labour, regardless of their stance on the charity status of private schools? You'd vote for Labour because en masse you believe in their goals.

Otherwise it's a bit like voting Conservative if they promise to drop the rate of tax you'd pay.

Or do people choose their party based on how it will affect their bank balance?

My grandad used to say

' I wear my heart on left but my wallet on my right'

I'm not sure if he pinched that saying from someone ibut I think it might be true for quite a few.

You are probably in The South of England or near a big city
The Lawyers and Accountants I know earn well but not to the level you describe.
So only the DC of the top lawyers and Accountants from the larger firms may be able to afford it and Teachers certainly not

Value is estimated to be about £200 per pupil per term - less than the variation between schools anyhow.

VAT on fees isn't related to charitable status. That's dependent on a separate bit of VAT law/regulation - which also makes nursery and university fees exempt. That can of course now be changed, post-Brexit.

Getting rid of the monarchy would be more effective.

@Rainsdropskeepfalling I suspect it’s to appeal to some red wall voters who will see the headlines but not look into the proposal in any detail and who therefore believe it will generate the £1.7 billion in tax revenue that Labour are saying it will.

Labour have failed to take into account that private schools would be able to reclaim input VAT. Added to this is the impact of drop off with some pupils leaving the private sector - this would have the result of (1) not as much VAT being collected as Labour are saying it will and (2)additional costs to the tax payer of funding former private school children in the state sector - both in terms of yearly funding and one off capital costs to create the school places.

I was considering voting Labour but will not whilst they have this policy. If they haven’t costed this one properly, I’m not convinced they are going to cost other policies accurately.

For all the reasons others have mentioned, it's a pretty pointless policy, and it's purely politically designed to whip up ideological support rather than achieve anything concrete. Just look at some of the reactions on here.

For example @Mizzlesticks (sorry to single you out) - do you live in social housing? Rely on benefits? Have a relative in prison? No? Then presumably any concern you might express for how those areas are governed is 'faux'. No? No - because funnily enough, people are quite capable of feeling concern for things that do not personally affect them. I am quite capable of caring about state education even though I (no longer) use it myself. People who choose private education are not uniquely selfish and lacking in empathy - just as those who benefit from other paid-for luxuries (nice houses, nice food, private swimming lessons for their kids etc etc) are still quite capable of wanting the system to be better for those who can't afford those things. Of course there are parents in private schools who are pretty selfish and only interested in things that benefit them. There are plenty of them in state schools too.

I can afford to pay more tax. I think I should pay more tax. I will continue to vote for a party that would charge me more tax. But VAT on school fees is not the way to do it. Not because it's particularly unfair compared with other forms of tax - but because it would be expensive to bring in, complex, legally problematic, wouldn't raise much (if any) money overall, and would bring with it a whole raft of unintended consequences.

Has nobody thought about the impact this could also have on universities? They are also private establishments with charitable status. You have to pay to go there, albeit the fees are subsidised by the government.

So, a policy comes in that private education is now not eligible for charitable status and / or VAT is now to be added to fees. Will they differentiate between universities and private schools, and if so how? Lawyers will (rightly) argue they are one and the same thing. I think most people would be up in arms to have university fees increasing by 20%. No?

What about independent vocational schools that specialise in e.g. dance, or special needs schools who provide for children whose needs just are not being met in the state sector e.g. specialist dyslexia provision? Are you saying that a gifted ballet dancer or someone who cannot access learning at a mainstream school should be prevented from having that extra support which is just not available in the state sector? How do you determine which private schools are "worthy" of remaining as they are and which ones should be abolished? Again, legal challenges would be ten a plenty.

Hate to burst people's bubbles too but the average house price of a house in the catchment of one of the most sought after state schools in Hertfordshire is £1.6m. In my local town, house prices in the catchment of our rated good comp are £900k. In the next town with two schools in close proximity - one highly regarded, the other nobody wants their child to go to - there's a £250k difference between house prices in two adjoining roads with one in catchment for the good school and one not. State education is just as driven by wealth as private education.

Yes, of course, EVERYONE wants equality in education regardless of the decisions they make personally for their children. The government, whoever is in power, should be looking closely at fixing a broken state system as opposed to using abolishing state schools as a smokescreen for failures behind belief.

There really wouldn't be much point.

Tories aren't going to muck about with charitable status (it would be quite a complex thing to achieve, without unintended consequences, and I'd be very interested to see the exact proposal of how it would be done, as no-one has ever put one forward)

But Gove has said he's in favour of VAT on school fees, so I think it's coming. Just a case of when and what rate

I've never voted Tory, and I never will. I'm what I think they call a swing voter - usually Lib Dem but labour the last 2 times. Not sure what I'd vote this time, this policy wouldn't stop me voting Labour but also wouldn't encourage me to. I'd like to keep my kids at their current school but our local states are excellent, just very large classes, so wouldn't be awful if we had to move them.

As @Lozzybear noted I have forgotten to add in the input tax refunded to VAT paying businesses as well;

I think it reduces the tax from 20% to around 12-15%. This would reduce input VAT to £650m-£800million....

Costs around £1.68BN

There is no way this policy makes financial sense. Unless you believe no people would leave private provision as a result (they would) and no schools would go out of business as a result (they would).

Yes, of course, EVERYONE wants equality in education regardless of the decisions they make personally for their children.

Just look at the threads where a significant number of private school parents are constantly moaning about their 'not quite bright enough' children losing out to brighter state school students who are 'stealing' their Oxbridge places. There are many who don't give a hoot what happens in the state sector as long as it doesn't impact them and erode the advantage they are buying. So much hyperbole on this thread too. 20% of DC are in private sector for sixth form, much lower (more like 7% ) in the younger years. I don't believe there will be a mass exodus to state schools on account of a hypothetical opposition policy. The very real cost of living crisis will be a much bigger catalyst for people not being able to pay fees. If a minority of currently privately educated DC have to go to the state sector, the world won't end. I can't believe I am reading tales of woe about cleaners having to be cancelled and increases in school fees having to be found when the reality for most people in this country is that they would never have been able to choose to privately educate in the first place and they are now choosing between feeding and heating their families.

Just look at the threads where a significant number of private school parents are constantly moaning about their 'not quite bright enough' children losing out to brighter state school students who are 'stealing' their Oxbridge places. There are many who don't give a hoot what happens in the state sector as long as it doesn't impact them and erode the advantage they are buying
Agree with this completely.
If someone privately educates it should be because they've decided that's the best education for their child at that time, not under a misplaced belief that their offspring are automatically better than other children and should be entitled to leap frog other children simply because their parents had the funds for a pricey school.

Dare I say it, if someone spends a small fortune on private fees and private 6th form and still doesn't get 'their' Oxbridge place, they probably aren't that academically gifted to start with. If you've spent 13 years of schooling telling yourself your child is better than everyone else, it must be hard to realise that they're not.

@LolaSmiles : parents of privately educated children do realize their children are not gifted. Many children get managed out of selective private schools because they cannot cope.
Recently Oxbridge has been giving priorities to state educated children so it this tendency continues and my DS will be up to Oxbridge he will go to state secondary.

parents of privately educated children do realize their children are not gifted. Many children get managed out of selective private schools because they cannot cope.
Then those parents aren't the ones that the poster was discussing and that I was replying about.

@Mizzlesticks it's perfectly possible to be fed up that you can't afford the things you used to afford, yet still recognuse that you're lucky compared to most. I know plenty of state school parents who are having to cut down on cleaners, holidays etc. Of course they're still fortunate compared with others. And I would hope they wouldn't moan about these things in front of someone who's strugggling to feed their family. But being a bit fed up privately (or on MN) that you can no longer afford the same things you used to, is not the sole preserve of those on the breadline.

Absolutely. I know we are lucky in so many respects, and what I think is; if we are having to make significant cut backs on our household income due to cost of living I feel awful for those who don't have cut backs to make - I'm a social worker, so I work with some of those people and see first hand the increased reliance on charities, food banks etc and the devastation public funding cuts have had.

@Badnewsoracle I would imagine that you have a much better sense of perspective than a number of posters on this thread.

@diar of course they can be fed up and moan as much as they like, in private or in public. Just don't expect too much sympathy, that's all.

Probably not. I have a neighbour whose children were managed out from Thomas's Fulham many year ago, basically the school asked parent to take children out because the children were not performing well and were spoiling school's statistics.

No, and tbh I don't imagine they're expecting any sympathy. But the point you make (about some relatively well off people having to cut back on cleaners) kind of illustrates the point - that a policy to introduce VAT on school fees is borne more out of a general resentment towards the better off rather than a thought-through proposal to actually raise taxes fairly and effectively. These threads always just descend into a general rant about privilege - which is a far wider issue than that of private vs state schooling (plenty of state school families live in nice houses and go skiing and have cleaners). I don't think anyone on here has actually argued with the principle of taxing the well-off to support public services, they've just said that introducing VAT on school fees isn't a terribly sensible way of doing it.

Oh another reason to vote labour then 😁.

@diar I will say this very slowly and clearly. There is a difference between VAT on school fees and removing charitable status. They are two different things.

Why would you assume that my views are because I resent people who are better off than me? Sorry to burst another or your little bubbles but absolute nonsense in this case.

OK, well if that's not what lies behind your views, what is the point of your statement 'I can't believe I am reading tales of woe about cleaners having to be cancelled' - what is the relevance of that statement in the context of whether to remove charitable status from private schools?