Will VAT on private school fees lead to a partial collapse of the sector?

[mids2019]

Will VAT on school fees coupled with cost of living drive a lot of parents from the private sector or will the majority absorb the cost? Are the numbers that potentially end up in the public sector going to offset any gains to the treasury through VAT?

Labour are working at about 4-5% transfer rate to the public sector but is this an underestimate?

Well how is causing more to move from private to state going to help?

Bonkers surely to add to that

It can deal with a natural fall better than constructed damage

No, I point out that the poster's statement was incorrect - "adding more kids to the problems the state sector is facing".

The fact is that regardless of this policy or a significant shift from private to state, there will be fewer kids in the state sector.

I'm not saying it is. I'm just saying it's curious it doesn't get mentioned in the context of a small decrease in the private school population or the pressures on the private sector, but that's probably a derail too far.

I think I should step out as I think this is a debate where most are expecting people to have a clear and entrenched position and I don't! I just get wound up by unfactual stuff in education debates, but it's probably unhelpful here.

“That and computer science. People who can teach comp sci do not want to do it for a state teacher wage.”

This is one area that should be offered all the way to A level age, if we want to stay relevant in the future. Even if kids could login to an online teacher funded by tech businesses meeting their ESG targets.

I was hoping Labour would do a more New Labour 90s thing. I was hoping for:

• closer relationship with Europe again
• putting tech and education first - especially acknowledging that the Covid generation of children needs lots of help.
• Tech tech and tech again and specialities and clear thought as to how we as a small country remain relevant and safe into the future

Instead we get this crappy policy, I am really annoyed!

Probably because it’s a sector being used as a political prop for an upcoming GE - thay will damage like a 20% hit on any sector would. People are keener when it’s dc though

If asked I’m sure they’d be fine with natural decrease and not much to write about.

Sadly they’re bearing the brunt of all political woes. Illogically and without benefit.

Ha I get you

Yes I really want to vote Labour but like many who have an interest in the private system and education I am at a loss as to how this is meant to improve anything. Anything at all!
As I said if they could even explain where the few thousand they gain from this is going to go to make a benefit, and offset it against the extra funding the LA's will need for facilities the closed privates offer (pool and fields) when they are turned into housing estates, that would be great. I do see it was Tory policy selling off the fields and causing the reliance on private, but pretending it isn't an issue is terrifying.

They just needed to say they'd fix the buildings.
Or put more money into STEM
Or more money into SEN

Anything other than pushing out middle classes from a system they are using to cover the lack in the state sector. The whole policy screams of people wanting to drag others down, and it's never the elite they have their claws into.

Yes the pandemic pushed much better online school provision - so many great resources and tools and it has been shoved aside and not engaged with to support children: either not doing well in school or with poor attendance or just kids who could do a bit more at home with access to educational tools.

it should be embedded into every year to offer relevant support apps, (and not just ‘go on sumdog’) and councils referring to online schools to try and engage kids the traditional options aren’t working for.

so lazy and uninspired is the current offer..

@JassyRadlett - for now we know the local birth rate is massively down. However, any Government is open to welcoming more economic migrants with young families so even that cannot be truly “factual” in the long run.

Accepted that there is no certainty in life except our ultimate doom, and none of us should make any statements about what will happen past tomorrow 😂

The reality remains that the school population is experiencing a fairly clear trajectory of decline that is well accepted and already in train and, failing a very significant and seismic effect, will continue into the 2030s - which means rhetoric around lack of spaces in the state sector, "adding more kids" to a contracting sector is not based on the facts as they are commonly and currently understood.

“The reality remains that the school population is experiencing a fairly clear trajectory of decline that is well accepted and already in train and, failing a very significant and seismic effect, will continue into the 2030s - which means rhetoric around lack of spaces in the state sector, "adding more kids" to a contracting sector is not based on the facts as they are commonly and currently understood.”

Agreed, but most of us on here are discussing Covid children, that is Year 3 and above and the impact that has had on them. They need to be treated separately as a group from the much younger demographic now coming through. And it is the duty of policymakers to understand this is vital.

Education is a massive UK PLC export from which we have all benefited greatly. We know universities are in trouble too. Whatever an incoming Government plans to do, they have to do it very carefully with careful consideration as to possible consequences for all.

I’d say that is the opposite of how Labour are approaching this.

I put it down to a party who has been out so long that poor policy overrides good

Overfocussing too much on the declining birth rate right now will let this current generation of children down, who have been through the worst event since 1945 (aka Covid).
We could just say let’s not worry about staff shortages in the state sector right now, who cares, there will be far fewer children left in schools by 2030, we won’t need this many teachers anyway.

So I do understand why private school parents are upset. Not only have their families been through Covid like everyone else, now an incoming Government is deliberately setting out to punish them and their children. And the rest of us in the state sector will just have to lump the additional competition for good state schools given the already stretched system, staff shortages, poor child and teen mental health etc etc and many adults struggling as well.

I think you misunderstand. To improve the edusystem, labour knows that they need more of the electorate to have skin in the system. If everyone with financial resources and the ability to engage with the press and political systems flees the state education system, then there is no one to speak up when (parts of) the system break. They are trying to push the middle class out of the private system, and back into the state system where the m/c parents will demand a more effective education for their kids. Then an increasingly larger portion of taxes can be diverted to state education instead of corporate tax breaks or whatever.

Private medical insurance was the worst thing for the NHS because once the noisy middle class didn’t have to wait in line for treatment if they had BUPA, the waiting lists increased. It’s the same with schools, if the noisy middle class opt out with the elite, the state education system loses its defenders. It becomes easier to defund the system because the hard-pressed middle class want tax cuts so they can pay private school fees and there is less for the state school pot.

Labour needs the m/c to be invested in the state system to drag it up, not down s you suggest.

"They are trying to push the middle class out of the private system, and back into the state system where the m/c parents will demand a more effective education for their kids. Then an increasingly larger portion of taxes can be diverted to state education instead of corporate tax breaks or whatever."

@UKsounding They are the government and THEY CHOOSE what to spend on, they don't sit around waiting for Mrs Bling from Tunbridge Wells to write to them clutching her pearls about something. This is their actual job. Ditto with NHS. Unless you think what the Tories have done has been approved of by Labour over the years as a "Hah! now we'll show the MC!" gotcha moment in waiting?

Also not wanting VAT on education is not equivalent to people not wanting to pay tax. Everyone I know who isn't keen on this is happy to pay higher taxes on earnings - a significant amount of parents at mid/low end private schools are not in that bracket.

@UKsounding - my children are in the state sector and we are middle class and we certainly are not the only ones! My DC are quite high achieving and they have been fine, but they never got much attention. Primary was spent telling me how to challenge them myself and even at secondary, they have to work a lot out themselves. There is no funding and extra attention for middle class kids. Most of it goes on those who have higher needs and I suspect that will always be the case. For example, in primary school interventions and extra small groups before school have always been to get the lower achievers up to a certain level, never to extend higher achievers.
So I get why busy middle class people and rich people pay private schools to get more attention for their DCs, especially if they work full time. There is no amount of shoving middle class DCs back into state that is going to change this given how many difficult children, children with SEN, difficult parents are out there. Same applies to the NHS, often people pay up for efficiency not to by pass waiting lists. All of my friends who are doctors openly state that too many patients waste NHS resources by simply not taking the medication as instructed and not following simple order. Unfortunately accessing both medical care and education properly means there has to be some involvement from both patients and parents and the DC themselves. Where that is not forthcoming the service provided is never going to be ideal. In private health care systems the insurance company just won’t pay if you don’t follow doctor’s orders or don’t take your medicine. You get one chance and you have to pay 5-10% yourself. People need to value our services more and do their own bit. That is the solution here.

To improve the edusystem, labour knows that they need more of the electorate to have skin in the system

This attitude shows such a lack of actual appreciation for education.

We all have skin in the system, whether our children are in state or private, whether we have children at all. Because we all live in this country, and the future of the economy and overall wellbeing of the country depends hugely on the children who are now in school.

And education isn't some kind of tick-box exercise. It isn't about how well kids do in exams compared to each other. As if there was some fixed set of jobs in the UK, and the country will tick along just as well regardless of how well those jobs are done - and education only exists to sort kids into a pecking order of who gets the best-paying ones. That's an incredibly narrow view-point which hugely under-values education.

Better education makes people better than they would have been otherwise. More capable. More innovative. More productive. More logical. More clear-sighted. More confident. More willing to try things outside their comfort zone.. which sometimes results in achieving something they hadn't imagined.

We should be embracing every bit of educational investment given to any child in the UK, since any education for any child will make our country a little bit better for all of us in 20 years time. However that education comes: whether through state education, private education, structured extra-curricular classes, or parents sharing their own skills and strengths with their children. These all make our country a better place.

Suggesting that parents need to have kids in state education to care about it only shows how little you truly value education yourself.

absolutely - every extra £ people spend on their dc to bring them on educationally benefits society in the end. That’s why education spending is not a luxury and we should be encouraging all parents to invest as much as they can.

business investment - good, boosts growth
nhs investment - good, boosts productivity
but people spending on education - unfair, unfair, inessential, luxury.

Yes 100%

Well said @strawberrybubblegum

It's not about not wanting to pay tax, it's about the fact that those like our group of school parents won't be bothered whilst those that are looking to the private sector to fulfil a particular need like better SEND education will be screwed as there just isn't the space for SEND children in the state system. The wrong people will suffer from the tax all because the labour party want to be seen as punishing the rich.

Don't get me wrong, our DC's school want to protect it's own because like other boarding schools it's very much like a community, but the leadership team have already declared that will happen through a reduction in the number of bursaries and scholarships and even if it didn't, we wouldn't be bothered anyway. So all this will do is make the elite more elite, and the rest fighting for the support and education those kids need.

@strawberrybubblegum has nailed it