How soon might a Labour Government put 20% VAT tax on private school fees?

[jennylamb1]

That really. Given that an election date has been declared for July, how soon might a Labour Government set their first budget?

According to you it’s about getting ahead because you put your fingers in your ears and refuse to listen to the many reasons that people choose private education for their children.

Private education is classed as 'goods or service' in some countries, whereas (state) 'education' is classed as a right/need - see for example New Zealand.

and yet the EU, the US and Australia see this differently, that education is an investment and not a privilege.

That’s not true is it? That things that aren’t privileges are free. Business investment isn’t a privilege, food isn’t a privilege etc. a lot of things that aren’t free aren’t privileges…

@Dibblydoodahdah so you honestly don't believe that parents pay for education so children can have a better experience and get ahead?

I would respect people's view to send children to private education if there was more honesty.

I certainly don't believe anyone's paying that much to be charitable and save the state money.

It's the Independent Schools Council who lobbied for this, so they must have some sense of the mechanics.

Are you genuinely saying that a child who goes to a private school has no more privilege than one who goes to a state school?

Private education is buying privilege.

Yes, because they’re children and it wasn’t their decision in the first place. Children are just children. I was buying myself the privilege of being able to work because my children were so distressed they were shutting down and melting down constantly.

as I said, only in Britain do we have this toxic privilege and not investment debate.

Agreed. Mine go to private school and I have never heard anyone mention this as a factor in their decision making for choosing private! Let's not pretend we send our children for altruistic reasons, it's just embarrassing seeing people tie themselves in knots like this.

What's with the disingenuous language?

You say 'education' but you mean private education, and you say 'privilege' whereas the typical term in countries where there is taxation on private education is that they are a goods or service.

Some countries see it one way, but clearly the UK will see it differently.

Why is there no discussion of lobbying the actual schools who have increased fees by 55% since 2003 to stop pushing their fees up?

I have selected a school that I a think will give my dc the best education and the best chance at making the most of their innate capabilities. It isn’t about jockeying ahead of other children, because I don’t share the worldview that there is some cap on the number of children who can be successful - there are lots of ways to be successful in life, and it can take many different forms.

my children aren’t particularly academic (so far anyways), and I don’t know that elite university will be in the cards for them at all. If we continue to our senior school I know my dc will be exposed to lots of different possibilities (art, textiles, btecs, sport, languages, theatre in addition to a more standard academic offering) and the hope is that one or more of these things will stir a passion that gives them a sense of direction once they leave school.

surely most people do the same for their children in terms of helping them find the best path for them? They would pay for extracurriculars or for materials to support independent learning to the extent that they are able. My dc have needs and interests that I cannot fully meet on my own nor through state education alone, so we have looked for the best formula for supporting their needs that we can in the context of financial and geographical limitations. Others might come up with a different formula based on their own limitations, but we are all just trying to do the best for our children. It doesn’t need to be a competition.

@quantmum not at all, I really do mean education, as a category that should always remain VAT exempt. Parental investment of any kind should always be encouraged.

So is paying for extracurriculars or buying a house based on catchment areas or frankly just living in a two parent home with available and supportive parents. You are choosing an arbitrary place to draw the line on where privilege is acceptable vs. Not.

@Labraradabrador

so you must accept then that if your children did not have parents with the resources they do, they would not have access to the opportunities private education is giving them.

My point is that the children of parents who can afford private education are no more worthy of the opportunities you're giving your children then anyone else's, they've not earned access to more opportunities, they've literally been given it by luck of birth. Therefore, that is a privilege.

no child is more worthy of a good education than any other, and I don’t think any parent in private or state would assert that.

we do the best for our children and that means different things for different families. If your child is well housed, clothed and fed they have privilege. If they are well supported educationally in state they have privilege. If you are able to spend time with them and support extracurriculars they have privilege. We live in a wealthy country with no shortage of privilege if we choose to look at it from the perspective of those who have less. Conversely we can focus on anyone that has a bit more than us and feel hard done by.

Why did I send my DC to private school:

1. My local primary didn’t offer wrap around care and childminders were very thin on the ground in our rural area. With no family support (due to my mum becoming terminally ill when my oldest DC was a baby), the wrap around care was a major attraction - as someone with a career that demands long hours it was the solution to continuing my career without my DC losing out because they could do all their extra curriculars at school. That’s one of the reasons that private schools are so popular with professional working women.
2. My oldest DC was born in the baby boom years and in the previous years before he was due to start primary, a number of reception children ended up without a school place and had to be home schooled via tutors being paid for by the local authority for weeks until extra spaces were created. This created the potential of a massive childcare issue.
3. My oldest DC is exceptionally bright (we now know top 1%). He was bored at his day nursery and they encouraged a move to the pre school of a private school when we discussed it with them despite having their own pre school. He is no longer in private school as we are lucky enough to live ten miles away from one of the most academically selective and high performing state secondary schools in the country. He attends that school because it is the best school within reasonable travelling distance to support his needs.

Why do I continue with private for my youngest?

1. He has suffered from severe school refusal and anxiety. His current school have been amazing including providing weekly counselling from a qualified professional at no additional charge. He has flourished with their support. However, big groups of people, noise and disorder set off his anxiety. A large comprehensive would be a disaster for him. I know that because we have similar personalities and my stress and anxiety in a completely unsuitable school environment resulted in a suicide attempt. It’s for that reason I completely understand why many parents of DC who were previously failed by the state system and who moved them to private are now very worried about being able to afford the fees.

It was never about being better than someone else, the old boys network etc. that people constantly state as being the reason on here. I didn’t go to private school and neither did most of the parents at my DC’s private school.

I don’t doubt that it will be a reason for some parents at some schools but it’s not my experience. In fact, I went to look at another private school for my youngest DC recently. A small school full of children who have SEN and other issues that were not being supported in their previous schools. I don’t think one sixth former ended up at Russell Group last year. That clearly doesn’t matter to the parents who send their DC there, they just want them to be happy and supported. I was more than happy to move my DC there from his larger (and higher performing from an academic point of view) private school but he became extremely distressed when we discussed it. So again, when people are told on here that their kids will be fine moving to another school, I know that for some kids it would be a disaster.

@quantmum that's twice you've mentioned the 55% increase in fees since 2003. What makes you say that's so ridiculous? (The Bank of England inflation calculator suggests a 76% increase in the cost of goods and services in that time). And why do you think schools have increased fees? It's not because they want to make more and more money, (with the possible exception of 'proprietor' schools where the business is privately owned) - the only effective way of significantly increase if income is to increase pupil numbers (on an independent school balance sheet the biggest income stream is fees, the biggest cost is staff salaries) - an additional 1% increase in fees generates less income than a few additional pupils, but might disenfranchise the same number of families and encourage them to leave, so fee increases are very market sensitive in most cases. In recent years bigger increases have been due to exceptional staff costs (increases in NI, pension contributions etc.) and increases such as higher interest rates and energy costs. The fact that VAT is coming after a period of much higher fee increases is part of the problem of unaffordablility but it isn't the cause and it isn't unjustified or, in most cases, greedy.

@Labraradabrador

"no child is more worthy of a good education than any other, and I don’t think any parent in private or state would assert that.

we do the best for our children and that means different things for different families. If your child is well housed, clothed and fed they have privilege. If they are well supported educationally in state they have privilege. If you are able to spend time with them and support extracurriculars they have privilege. We live in a wealthy country with no shortage of privilege if we choose to look at it from the perspective of those who have less. Conversely we can focus on anyone that has a bit more than us and feel hard done by."

On average every child would be better off if the were educated in a setting like a private school, the children of parents who can afford private education are not more delicate, deserving or otherwise in need of private education.

Of course privilege is a sliding scale but the point I'm making is that parents who send there children to private education in U.K. have already given their children the privilege of living in a wealth country, spend time with them, support their education. It's just their getting the benefit of a private education on top of these points.

Your post is very much everyone should be grateful for what they've got but your buying access to better education for your child that others won't have access to when they have the exact same need profile as yours and everyone else's children who go to private school. Your saying that state provision is not good enough for your children, you're not accepting what you have. Yet you expect others to accept it's fair your children and others at private school have more than the average child in the U.K. has?

We can debate the moral wrongs and rights about privilege (and by the way - I hope you don't buy any privilege in terms of clubs, tutoring, books etc because some people csn't afford that privilege) but, for me, this comes down to a cost v benefit analysis. I believe this will harm an awful lot of families and children with very little benefit, if any, to the state sector.

Of course we all want the state sector to be better. My best friend works in our local school teaching 7 year olds and in recent weeks has been told to F off, had chairs thrown at her, she's been punched and barricaded in her class room. She's a fantastic teacher but she just can't teach at the moment. No amount of VAT on school fees is going to fix that. It's a bigger problem.

@Dibblydoodahdah

my point is that I really doubt that children who have parents who send them to private school have needs and abilities that are so exceptional that no child in state school has faced the same.

Yet the children who go to private school have those needs met to an extent that on the whole is not possible in state school. If it were possible, no one would send their child private, it would completely end the need for the industry.

So the child who goes to private school has their needs met and the child who doesn't muddles through to whatever extent they and their parents can.

That is unfair as no one can say the child themselves has earned the right to better opportunities than their peers.

My DC started at private school in 2013. I have put the fees applicable in 2013 into an inflation calculator and, guess what, they have only gone up in line with inflation. Granted, the increases haven’t been a smooth line as it has depended on what outside pressures the school has faced so they were kept to a minimum during COVID and this year has seen the largest rise due to the requirement to increase the TPS payments. What I have experienced at my DC’s school is that during the past year this has been the first time people have openly complained about costs. People’s mortgages etc. are increasing dramatically just like parents in the state sector - private school parents are not all immune to cost of living pressures. So the fact that some Labour MPs have been telling their concerned private school parent constituents that they can afford the VAT because they have managed through the cost of living crisis, completely oblivious to the fact that this may be the increase that pushes them over the edge, is disgusting.

This isn't (or shouldn't be) a niche issue, because it tells us one of two very clear things about the Labour Party.

Either - they genuinely believe that this policy is going to raise a transformative amount of money, in which case they're financially illiterate and shouldn't be trusted with the economy.

Or - they know it's not really, but they're going to do it anyway because they know it's a dog whistle policy which will appeal to a certain section of their core vote, and they'll go ahead in spite of the lack of revenue, damage to what Starmer himself has said is a very successful and in some cases trailblazing sector, and risk of loads of unintended consequences and disruption to some children's education - in which case, they're fundamentally dishonest.

Whichever of those is true, that should matter to people regardless of whether they're directly affected by VAT on school fees.

Who is doubting that privilege is a sliding scale?
Literally everyone knows there are all types of privilege, in all types of degrees.

However, you surely would not be comparing an extra curricular activity or a tutor with a private education?

Otherwise why aren't all parents just paying for swimming and sports and a maths tutor not spending thousands on private schools if like you say it's all the same privilege? They obviously believe there is a value in buying that level of privilege.

And just how is this policy going to resolve the issue of state school not meeting the needs of some children?! It won’t and it may make things worse for some state school children. It will definitely make things worse for some private school children. Comprehensive schools are often far from comprehensive. They can’t deal with the wide range of needs required by different children. It’s the state school system that needs to be restructured, not the private system.

Of course some children will have more than average - that is in fact how averages work.

why the arbitrary line drawn at private education?

There will be some children in state with more privilege than mine, btw - a lack of send probably would go a long way in balancing out the lifelong benefit of private education. There will be children with more money than us in state, who can afford all manner of extras that we cannot. There will be children with better parents than mine (doing my best,but I have my limitations). I am not bitter about other children having more than mine, but I also don’t feel guilty about doing my best for my child and won’t be applying some sort of false ceiling on how I support them.

so basically the sort of privilege I might choose to buy is fine. The sort you choose to buy is reprehensible.