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?

It is depressing that it is only GB news and the Telegraph defending us against Maoist collectivisation of education. This is what populism has done to the centre ground in UK politics.

The Guardian did a good article, Times and I have also done pieces identifying that the policy won't work.
ENT are working really hard to raise the issue with politicians of all parties.

https://inews.co.uk/news/labour-private-school-vat-state-school-crisis-union-2068469

https://neu.org.uk/advice/member-groups/independent-sector/vat-independent-school-fees

Even the unions have highlighted why the policy is a bad idea. The Labour Party seem to have tunnel vision and are ploughing ahead regardless of numerous warnings about the downside to employees, state schools, and private school pupils. The only logical reason they can possibly be going ahead is their hatred towards the sector.

I wonder if they're waiting till towards end of campaign to announce they're not doing it in order to pick up a load of votes from people who are deciding to hold their noses and vote Tory - those who support it will vote Labour regardless so not much to lose.

Would be nice but sadly I don't think they will u-turn until they are in power and actually look into how to do it.
You can see every time a Labour spokesperson is questioned on it that they haven't got any reasoning behind it other than a strapline. They have not looked into it.
Is a damning reflection on their capability.

So depressing... hardly gives one confidence about the rest.

@mids2019 Rachel Reeve’s parents would have moved if faced with poor schools. We have poor schools for a reason! Flight of the middle classes.

https://inews.co.uk/opinion/labour-lazy-private-school-plan-cost-them-3087393

Isn't that one of the goals of the left? If not everyone can have it, then no one should be able to have it. I suppose that's a form of equality.

As long as They get the best state schools or can send Their child/ren to private school. Classic.

https://www.theguardian.com/education/article/2024/jun/03/society-is-unequal-but-this-is-regressive-parents-on-private-school-fee-vat-plans-labour

An interesting read here

https://taxpolicy.org.uk/2024/06/02/independent_schools_misleading_vat/

You know Labour have come up with a shit policy when even The Guardian publishes a critical article about it!

Indeed the Guardian have now published 2 critical articles on the policy.

Even unions are now saying it’s a bad idea.

True it glaringly is though

Yep teaching unions are increasingly worried about it

yes if I was an art, drama, modern languages. History, music, Latin, PE teacher in a private school I’d be fairly concerned.

Why?

Because the policy is going to cause job losses in the private sector - some schools will close, others will have to cut back on teachers. Those roles don’t exist in some state schools so job opportunities will be limited. Our local state school doesn’t do GCSE music, German or Latin for example.

In London some state schools have applied hiring freezes for all teaching staff until they know what’s happening with VAT. The plan for some academies is to make lots of redundancies and try to hire unqualified private teachers as teaching assistants & qualified ones of good schools as heads / deputies.

Given that most expenditure of independent schools is on teacher salaries and the annual increases have been due to employing more and paying teachers more, it makes sense. Once a group of employees have only one potential employer - the state sector- their salaries will go down over time.

I see. How sad that Starmer isn’t talking about how he’d improve state education (more art, sport, music etc), rather than going on about this ridiculous VAT - let’s penalise everyone - scenario.

A lot of ps teachers have said they won’t move to state, and would actually prefer do a different job.

All round a terrible state of affairs, and Starmer should be ashamed he’s going to ruin thousands of children’s education, and lose people, their jobs. What a depressing insight into a labour gvt, if this is just one example.

Yes, most likely cost savings to be found will be in staff costs, and the non core teachers are likely to be hit hardest. The cost of living inflation issues already hit music staff hard at the dc school.

Depressing and hard to reverse the damage even if in for one term