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?

Before anyone asks, I am talking about DC who live in villages going to school, and going to schools further away as a result of not getting a place in their 1st or 2nd choice. The villages are deemed not safe to be walking along the road due to lack of footpaths etc. So, if they get their 2nd choice, 5 miles away, and there is no bus, the council has to provide a taxi.

I assume the Government would use some of the VAT that they get from the school fees to help fund more State School places.

The more people have to use state schools, the greatr the political motivation to invest in schools & improve the quality of state education.

@OrderOfTheKookaburra then you are wrong. Look at what they have stated that they will spend it on, 6000 new teachers. When the current government can't hit the much lower recruitment target. That's because it isn't just a funding issue, it is an Ofsted, poor SLT, poor behaviour of kids, mountains of paperwork issue. Throwing money at recruitment campaigns won't actually help kids.
Oh and access to mental health professional, not actual mental health professionals, just access to them.
They aren't promising to ring fence the money either so no actual guarantees that the money will go to education.
1.5 billion won't even cover the cost of replacing concrete let alone anything else.

@Howpo But we need to be incentivised to work hard, earn more and we are being taxed heavily on that. Being able to afford private school is my motivation to work. If this move incentivises moves to state schools and less working mothers there will be a reduction in the total tax paid. In my DS's class there us only 1 mum who doesn't work at the moment and that is because she is pregnant. In my niece's class in the local primary very few mums work - maybe out of choice, maybe out of lack of wrap around care provisions. I would definitely cut back on my hours if I had to move my DS - and therefore pay less tax - or my company could refuse less hours and I would become a SAHM and pay no taxes in order to be around for a later drop off, earlier pick up and to act as a taxi to sports clubs, swimming, music lessons, tutoring etc.

A signficant part of the issue in recruitng and retaining teachers and other public sector workers is having a government that constantly belittles them for its own ends.
A change of government could solve that.

@jgw1 "could" yes but not guaranteed plus people will wait to see what they do and I haven't actually seen Labour say anything about their education policy other than VAT. 6000 wannabe teachers aren't suddenly going to sign up just because there has been a change in government.
The VAT 1.5 billion is just another NHS Tory Brexit bus......a surface voter pleaser with no depth.

VAT on private schools’ spending, particularly whilst retaining their charitable status, is evidence of a party with no coherent philosophy. It won’t raise enough tax to solve any of the massive issues this country faces and doesn’t explain how the money raised will be spent. It will squeeze more money out of people who can afford it, but will also change the behaviour of others who can’t quite afford it in ways that do not benefit anyone. For someone who has no interest in private education, it’s all a bit meh. I’m not sure who it is supposed to appeal to, but it’s obvious who it alienates.

I think it is guaranteed that with a continued Tory government public sector workers will continue to be attacked by the government.

At least with Labour there is a chance that will change.

@Howpo

"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."

++++

Increasing the cost of private education through charging VAT just means that less well off people can afford it making it more it more exclusive to only the very rich, meaning inequality increases rather than decreases.

If you want to increase equality with regards to education and private schools then there are two options:

1. Abolish them altogether so no one goes or
2. you give more tax breaks / subsidies etc to parents sending their children to private school in order to increase the percentage of children at private schools (to as close to 50% as possible).

95% of pupils go to state schools. Plus given that young people do t vote and old people do vote then education has always been a low priority in Government spending because there are fewer votes in it than say keeping the Triple Lock Pension.

After 13 years of Conservative Government the country facing the highest debt to gdp since WW2, the highest tax burden in 70 years and worsening public services.

Labour proposes to get out of this mess by "growing the economy " which although great in theory is a lot trickier in practice

The VAT on school fees doesn't raise much tax revenue and is more a "let's bash the rich" populist empty policy which although will get them a lot of votes is at best is neutral in its impact and could even make things worse. In this way it is a bit like Brexit and "let's take back control "

Secondly at a time when growing the economy is your central policy to improve the UK it is not helpful to then be seen as the party that wants to "bash the rich" and penalise success.

The VAT on school fees doesn't raise much tax revenue and is more a "let's bash the rich" populist empty policy which although will get them a lot of votes is at best is neutral in its impact and could even make things worse. In this way it is a bit like Brexit and "let's take back control”

Absolutely

One of the shadow minister’s webchat answers made it quite clear that this policy is as much about making private schools poorer so they have to make cuts (just like state schools have), as it is about tax revenue.

So disappointing, for a while I really thought Keir Starmer was above this politics of envy stuff.

that this policy is as much about making private schools poorer so they have to make cuts (just like state schools have)

Geez. Hardly inspirational stuff

Come on Labour, they were better than that last time

“One of the shadow minister’s webchat answers made it quite clear that this policy is as much about making private schools poorer so they have to make cuts (just like state schools have), as it is about tax revenue. “

Many private schools are run inefficiently, taking the easy option of just constantly passing costs on to parents. This is born out by the exponential rises in fees in the last 20 years.

So from that perspective, Labour might be doing some private school parents a favour. Get those places run more efficiently.

Sadly, I think it will backfire. Things like teachers’ pensions have gone up for private schools. Some young dynamic drama school teacher may be persuaded to be self employed and charge services back through her company under the VAT tax threshold.

@Araminta1003

Sadly, I think it will backfire. Things like teachers’ pensions have gone up for private schools. Some young dynamic drama school teacher may be persuaded to be self employed and charge services back through her company under the VAT tax threshold.

Then she'd be caught by IR35! And anyway that wouldn't make any difference to parents - the parents still have to pay 20% VAT on school fees - they're hardly going to pay each teacher separately for Little Johnny's drama class (unless it's an extracurricular activity). How the school engages it's teachers doesn't affect VAT the school would charge the parents!

There are 10.3 million children in part or full time school in the UK. 615k of them are in private schools. Do you really think there aren’t already enough kids in state schools for it to be a priority for government?

I'm in favour of vat on fees but I don't think it will fix any of the problems in the state system. The problem isn't that people with kids in private school don't care, it's that successive governments haven't funded education adequately because voters as a whole don't want to pay for it. It was better under Labour but still not good enough.

Fretting about vat on school fees or the percentage of privately educated kids at Oxbridge is what Britain likes to do instead of thinking about education policy in a serious way. It's much easier to blame the failings of our education system on something simple than it is to try to deal with the radical change that's actually needed. So bring it on, why not, but let's not pretend it's actually going to fix anything.

It is interesting to see that despite Sunak's best efforts, his abandoment of Stop the Boats, in favour of more migration and more climate change, and Labour's policy announcement on private schools that the polls haven't moved in September. (Actually the prediction is a slightly larger Labour majority than it was at the end of August).

https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/prediction_main.html

A different poll has suggested that the gap has been closed by 8 points following the government announcement on petrol cars.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/09/25/rishi-sunak-latest-news-live-hs2-osborne-heseltine-shapps/

@cupofdecaf Shifting the burden of people who go without to fund their child’s education to now fund your child’s education. There is equality!

Deltapolls' previous poll was something of an outlier, so this "slashing" of Labour's lead may just reflect them finding a similar result to other polling companies.

https://www.markpack.org.uk/155623/voting-intention-opinion-poll-scorecard/

Worth noting that the swing to Labour in the Uxbridge by-election was about the size they would need nationally to be a majority government, and that even this Deltapoll that the Torygraph are triumphantly parading, still has Labour with a 16% lead and therefore likely parliamentary majority of over 100.

Agree. Also a bit naive to believe a government, any government will invest the money in education. If they believed in education they would have more concrete policies in place.

Interesting to see that all three main parties have guaranteed the universal winter fuel allowance and all three are expected to guarantee the triple lock.

Clearly investment in education is a much lower priority when young people don't vote and older people do.

Anyone who thinks the money getting raised from VAT on school fees will get re invested into education will be disappointed.