Is anyone else worried about the effect of rising private school fees on state schools?

[BabyIcecream]

Where I live there already aren't enough school places. Three big state secondary's, one is catholic, they are all over subscribed and bursting at the seams using old buildings with not enough funding.

Ive seen reports that at some private schools upto a third of pupils might leave if the fees go up due to VAT.

I'm worried about all these extra pupils needing places, DS already finds his school overcrowded and whilst I don't agree with private education putting extra pupils into the state system is just going to further disadvantage our children.

Unless money raised by increasing private schools costs is going to be used to fund state education? Does anyone know?

A million people came to the UK from Poland, when was that?

Very interesting

Between 2008 and 2019 the Polish population of the United Kingdom more than doubled, reaching reaching a peak of over 1 million in 2017

Remember when Labour said just 13,000 people would come over from Poland and we ended up with 1 million, when immigration rules changed?

I remember that. Why did they think there would only be 13,000 coming? On whose say-so?

So in a period of 11 years, most of them with a Tory government around 500,000 Poles moved to the UK.
It is probably also worth noting that most of the EU countries that put in place restritions on migration post Polands accession had lifted them by 2008, and so your data set tells us little about Labours decision not to impose such restrictions.

You remember the million poles coming, for which statement there is no evidence.

It’s gone down now obviously

Also this gov

Have I understood correctly that the rise in Polish migrants since 2010 is Labour's fault, but the fall in Polish migrants more recently is But Jeremy Corbyns fault?

Jeremy Corbyn?

Is that old auto play chestnut still going 😂

In total I think that around 1.5m Eastern Europeans arrived after 2004, this was woefully underestimated by the Blair government. Poles were the single biggest group.

In Australia independent schools receive a government subsidy to reflect the fact that parents are paying fees having already contributed to taxes to pay for State education. It's all part of the Australia emphasis on "fairness" but it would obviously be unthinkable in the UK. Like many many countries around the world a far higher proportion of students in Australia attend independent schools than the UK.

Most of them arrived after restrictions were lifted by other European countries so it is a stretch to say it was down to Tony Blairs decision not to put in place sinilar restrictions.
And in case it is necessary I will point out again the statement that a million poles came to the UK is untrue.

Do I ned to dig out the evidenc that shows that migrants on average contribute more than those born here?

May I say it is delightful to see But Tony Blair replacing But Jermy Corbyn as the reason why the Tories have run the country into the ground for 13 years. I do hope we have a but Harold Wilson soon.

You did ask when it happened. So you can expect answers 🤷‍♂️

And the answer is a million Poles didn't move to the UK.

Reputable estimates of the number of Poles arriving into the UK after Tony Blair's decision to open up the UK's labour market to them (in contrast to many other EU Countries) range from 800,000 to 1,000,000. Unfortunately it isn't possible to come up with an exact figure as the UK's statistics on incoming arrivals are hopeless, unlike most countries!

I don't see this policy bringing in many votes for labour. Those voters who are strongly against private schools most likely already vote labour. What it will do is loose any potential votes from any private school parents. I have never voted conservative in my life but think I may have to purely on the basis or this policy

I’d describe myself as a floating voter, probably a right-leaning centrist, as I’ve voted for each of the major parties over the years. The current government is an utter shambles, but I can’t bring myself to vote Labour on the axis of this policy (or their position on women with penis’s, but that’s for a whole other thread).

The spitefulness and jealously on this thread is crazy.

Especially when most private school parents are already the ones paying the most in tax anyway, in many cases by a long way!

I don’t understand your point. No schools gets the same budget with fewer children. The budget for private and state school depends on how many kids are on the roll.

Er, motorists are massively subsidized in the UK! You are not coming even close to the costs your driving imposes, especially when you include things like the opportunity cost of all the free/cheap parking that British cities tends to offer to motorists on huge amounts of land which could potentially be used for housing and businesses and other things that would generate tax monies.

In Japan, where I live, motoring looks expensive from the UK perspective, but that’s mainly because you have to pay the full market cost for everything you do as a motorist! You cannot park on the side of the street and must pay full market price for all parking spaces (which are the only places you may legally park); most big roads are tolled, and these fees are among the highest road tolls in the world, because the attitude here is that roads must pay for themselves and not be subsidized; when motorists pay the true, unsubsidized costs of the roads they are wearing out, the true price is wince-inducingly high. Etc. etc. etc.

No wonder most people in cities here, including me, just use PT and bikes and our feet! (No complaints from me here; I think Japan’s system is great.)

Bear in mind also that most people in the UK who don’t drive live relatively centrally, meaning that the government cost of providing them with street lighting, policing, utilities and other gov services is much lower compared with the cost of providing those same services to someone living in the outskirts of town, which correlates strongly with driving habits.

Its not about spitefulness, its about fairness, so the schools have now found a loophole for the tax "Parents can pay fees up front" the schools obviously think that their parents can afford to do this.

Many parents of children in these schools don't even live in the UK, let alone pay tax here.

All this moaning is typical of the rich wanting to hang on to every advantage (and money) they have.

Howpo not really. Why is so hard to understand that some people who are not rich have to send kids to private school because their state school options are dire, lack of SEN provision and in very rough urban areas. They are already paying a hefty fee on private schools because of this failure. Now the same people who are already sacrificing and prioritising their kids will be further punished with the added tax for their education. A cruel move not taking into account the effects on the kids stability. It is like at the NHS is currently impossible to get an appointment so even if you pay taxes and are entitled to free care you are push to go private.

Taxes are already very high. This come at a time where most people have their mortgage treble and bills too.

The problem is that they are not prioritising where the money should go. They never raised so much in taxes before. We should not be in this situation.

I have a meeting with our local Labour candidate next week to discuss this.
FYI he doesn't know any specific details either other than the OFS report. What does that tell you?
I suggest that anyone who is truly covered lobbies their Laboiuf candidates ASAP

do they expect working mothers to pick up the pieces, drive their kids miles to random schools or home school their kids as we did through Covid… of course it’s the mothers who will end up picking up the slack

Here's another flaw in their proposal. So where I live, there are 4 secondary schools available to my DC. One is very close and the other 3 are between 5 and 12 miles away. Just to add here, that one of the reasons why I continued on with private, was because my eldest was offered his 4th choice of secondary, and not the one a mile away where all my neighbours go, as a result of shrinking boundaries after population explosion. So, where I live there is a town, surrounded by loads of villages. There are no buses to take them to school, so guess what? The local council pays for taxis EVERYDAY there and back to school. Not a mini bus, picking them up on the way. No, a taxi per household, there and back. So, if many of the people around here leave private, the local council will have to start forking out for this too.

There are so many holes in this policy. There are a lot of SEN students in private schools, and the govt. will also have to pay for this whereas the parents have picked it up.

It's a shame we can't get more of a tangible calculation of the figures:

Revenue risen from implementation of VAT from remaining parents - extra schools/classrooms/teachers/staff/utilities/SEN provision/ transport/ admin

I actually think it will cost them more to implement rather than it being a revenue generator.