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?

@MisterChips

" the state schools would become partially fee paying schools." Or, as happens in every country in the world where this has been implemented, some of them would flourish at the level of the state grant.

And so it segues again! We are not discussing this, we are discussing how that would change the nature of a state school to a partially fee paying one. You can't argue with what I said so you change the subject.

If you're demanding that I pay VAT on it, then you're making it your business. If you're complaining about the gap from state to private, rather than more reasonably sticking to "let's all fund state schools better", then you're making it your business. And it's not your business.

Are you nine years old? "It's none of your business!" I am not demanding anything. If (or rather when) the incumbent Government demands that you have to pay VAT then you will just have to pay it or move abroad to a free market utopia. That's my point. What are you going to do about it? Constantly complaining and repeating the same tired arguments is not going to change the reality of it. It is what it is. And yes, of course, that is all of your business and all of your problem.

I pay £££ of tax towards the state, including for the public services I don't use; I do much more for the state than a parallel version of me using state schools, and I want to be left alone to what is my business.

🎻 I pay loads of tax too for public services that I don't use. I have no children in schools and I pay huge taxes. So what?

@ForlornLindtBear - the basic spend on my DC still in state primary is currently below £5000!

Our breakfast club costs £6 currently x 190 school days=£1140.

We would love this extra funding! But don’t tell our school to spend it on breakfast club. In reality I know they will never give us that much per child so we will be short and worse off than now if we have to offer it to every child or the quality will have to go down.

I think our school uses the extra money we raise in pre and after school clubs to go to general funds of the school. Our PTA also raises a lot every year and those of us who can give charitable donations on top often matched by employers as well. We then use what we can to enrich children who need it and pay for school trips, clubs etc We have free school uniform and a food bank box outside our school office. We have our pupil premium kids in extension classes before and after school already, if their parents agree to this. The PTA also gives each teacher a contribution towards equipment and that includes glue sticks.

I am still using old childcare vouchers saved up during the pandemic on breakfast and after school care. Many of the parents in our school can afford to pay.

We don’t want the Government to take away from poorer DC than our own especially not those with SEN in small private schools. It’s absurd.

My personal opinion in any event is that it is 11-14 working class poor boys that need the most support. I would prefer the experts to get their heads together and work out more youth clubs.

Breakfast clubs are only a good idea if they can get kids exercising before school as well and lots of PE teachers in with the energy to do it, especially in the cold or schools that do not have a large hall or field. And what will the kids wear?

So if they can rename them fit clubs and get a generation of kids into exercise first thing and actually show up on time, and fund it properly, then I think it is a good idea. If they can ingrain some exercise first thing that would help health & well being.

How are they going to get the children who need it to these breakfast clubs?

DD's primary we paid for her to go to their breakfast club - £8 a day iirc - every other parent there was a family with 2 parents working who needed the childcare.

School had a team who went out in the mornings and collected a load of pupils who were consistently absent and whose parents didn't bother getting them to school on time for a myriad of reasons. I can't see them turning up at 7.30 for this.

I didn't change the subject. If instead of taxing education like (checks notes) no other country, we adopted a personal education account or subsidy like (checks notes) about a dozen other countries and ten US states, and growing...

...we wouldn't only get, as you asserted, an industry of partial fee-paying schools. We'd more likely get a mix of more fee-paying schools competing harder against existing independent schools, which would be excellent, plus a bunch of schools operating at the level of the subsidy. It would indeed change the nature of state schools if parents were empowered, but it wouldn't necessarily result in what you claim, which hasn't been observed in any of the other countries where such systems are in place.

🎻 I pay loads of tax too for public services that I don't use. I have no children in schools and I pay huge taxes. So what?

To the extent that's a useful contribution to the debate, it's an argument for abolishing all government involvement in education, and it's one I reject. You and I both pay for everyone else's education for this excellent reason: educating children has social benefit. The difference is, at the same time I'm raising educated children and delivering even more social benefit than you; and at the same time I'm making a choice that saves you from paying for it; and at the same time I generate whopping taxes by going to work specifically to earn the fees. You (and society) win 3 times over.

I would hope the new Labour Government carries out a thorough Equality Impact Assessment. Whilst it is not a legal requirement it is recommended to mitigate against unintended consequences and understand the wider impact upon students, commmunities, and staff. For some parents/care givers, the choice to privately educate is a huge sacrifice and results in them foregoing holidays, expensive cars and many other things taken for granted. Not everyone is wealthy or privileged and many students are on scholarships and bursaries. I understand the sentiment but the added cost will not level up state schools that are failing, it won't address the best performing state schools being in postcodes that most people can't afford to live in, and it won't lead to a fairer society in the medium term. Will there be a tax on second homes, cars valued over £100k, first class flights, high end wrist watches, the list can go on and on.... But ultimately we all chose how to spend our money and we shouldn't be targeted because we feel we can't rely upon the state schools near where we live

@NickCB - agree with this. Have friends who very strategically bought a house in a certain catchment and then spent thousands tutoring their kids to get into a very good state grammar. They could afford private...but instead they have a second home and go on dozens of holidays.

My kids go to an independent school that we can barely afford. Without meaning to stealth boast, they are very academic and I'm sure we have aced the 11plus if we were in catchment etc. But we didn't make that choice...

Which is better for the system as a whole? By making private increasingly unaffordable for most, you'll end up with more and more parents doing what our friends did....it's what I'd do if we had our time again. Also, the privates will start scrapping bursaries. It's such a stupid policy.

They also said that they will only do one budget a year. So my guess is it'll be part of their first budget in March 2025.

That's why to understand this policy, it's actually so simple.

What's good for the country? Good schools. Lots of them. The more the merrier.

Is it bad that some people don't get good schools? Yes.

As a starting point, is harming good schools, making them less affordable, and risking closure, a good way to get towards having more good schools? Not really.

@MisterChips - the problem is, we all know the education system is under immense strain right now. The current policy seems to be 'let's fuck up an already fucked up system EVEN more in the hope that it will all eventually improve.'

I'd have WAY more time for this policy if there was a clear plan in place as to how this will be managed in both the short and the long term. Personally I'd even be onboard with a total abolition of state schools in the long term if it was clearly outlined as to how we'd get there. But labour can't even seem to work out how this will be managed even as a vote winner. All they will be doing in the short term is making an already unfair system even more unfair.

I would also be fine with the abolition of state schools, but I suspect that's not what you meant (and no, for the trolls benefit, that doesn't mean I want to deprive poor people of education).

Put it slightly more delicately: there are many and growing countries and US states that subsidise independent education in various ways so that instead of removing choice from parents (as Labour are intent on) you get more choice and more empowerment.

omg - yes, abolition of private schools! Private schools! 😂

That seems unlikely. Governments don’t have long in power and one of their biggest impacts is through the budget. Why would they wait 9 months before taking action?

It has been announced that it won't be brought in until Sept 25

The comment was 25/26 “at the earliest”. Bearing in mind that you could be looking at the latter end of that range, plus VAT receipts take a while to filter through, then where are they going to get the funding they have promised for the state sector up until then?

Why didn’t they say this from the start? To me, not that I thought it made sense anyway, but people must accept that it drives a cart horse through the financing of their education pledge in their manifesto even if you were anti-private.

Because, exactly with the charitable status debacle, they hadn't actually looked into the feasibility of the policy. It was just a soundbite to appease the hard left ie Raynor. Now there has been a campaign (thanks to ENT) to raise awareness of: SEN, military families, bursaries and scholarships plus the lack of state school places in many areas they have FINALLY acknowledged that it won't be a straightforward process.
We tried to tell them this 12 months ago but they refused to listen

@twistyizzy - this policy has already cost the tax payer significant amounts. All those 40/45 per cent tax payers who prepaid would have otherwise parked large sums in savings accounts at 4.5 per cent AER typically and paid tax instead. It must be a huge amount in reality that we have already lost out.

Yep plus the money it will cost over the next 12 months to get it properly investigated, any legal challenges etc.

C’mon everyone talking about money. This is not about money. It raises about £1bn but the reality is it will be less as people leave the system. The budget deficit is £121 bn. Furlough itself was £71bn. Labour thought the furlough was too short! This is small change in the context of the Treasury. It’s politics of envy. Say good bye to the Big Society. Society will be even more divided under Labour because this is effectively class war! So if someone declares war, war it is!!

It is not class war. Plenty of very MC people have DC in state schools. What does "So if someone declares war, war it is!!" mean exactly?

When I was in Asia it was fairly common for children to come home from school for a quick dinner around 4 and then on to evening tutoring at a tutor school until 8 or 9.

That's exactly what would happen here if PS were abolished or made prohibitively expensive

No more bursaries, no more charitable activities, no more supporting the concept of a Big Society.

The schools will have to keep doing charitable activities to maintain their charitable status. They can't just opt out. That's a key facet of charity law

Nearly half of indi schools aren't charities

I'm not sure it won't be this academic year I don't see that they've conclusively said they won't introduce this in this academic year - 2025 could be Jan 2025 and they're simply hoping for the element of surprise to stop people paying the year upfront etc.

I'm not sure I trust them whatsoever, they could've been clear about the probable timeframe upfront, it's possible that this language has simply softened due to lobbying in areas where this is a key issue and the position of teaching unions etc.

We are planning for it to come in this September. Most parents in our school are expecting this and arranging finances accordingly.