What other education will have VAT added?

[BigCroc]

Will this VAT on private school fees be limited, or could it go on other stuff too? Thinking about tuition and swimming lessons.

Completely agree. Don’t vote Labour or Reform then. That’s the issue. So many people think they are being clever by saying conservatives don’t deserve their vote. Of course we know why but don’t shoot yourself in the foot. What does everyone else think?

Surely if we don't want private education for the super rich, then the cost of private education would be much less. Or are you telling me that everything that private schools spend money on is entirely necessary for education?

A large portion of the costs is actually on staff wages. People imagine private schools to have vast fields and facilities etc which costs a lot of money but a lot of schools simply don’t have this especially in London.

Education is the key of success for many especially poorer students - so it becomes an even more vicious cycle - poorer get poorer education as they are crowded out from the better schools by middle class buying into catchment areas —> leading to worse outcomes —> leading to worse job prospects.

I agree more money is needed to fund the state education system to improve this so there are no “bad schools” and all schools should be a certain standard but this should not be at the expense of the private school sector. People seem to think it’s state vs private , but it’s not a competition, they should be able to coexist like now.

As the private sector is alleviating the pressure off state and like I said previously raising the education level as a whole (doesnt matter private or state) will turn UK into a smarter nation and prosper. The government should first look at itself and reduce costs - I have worked in the government sector before and it shocks me how inefficient it is with low productivity and full of people who have barely anything to do.

this policy is actually a backward step where everyone except the ultra rich is in a lose lose situation and will not reap benefits (Labour’s figures on benefit is massively inflated - the Adam Smith report has indicated that only 10% of students need to quit the private sector for this policy to not have any benefits due to taxpayers having to fund these students going to state schools instead + reduced potential VAT revenue due to their departure. This is a highly probable scenario as survey after survey have indicated over 15% will quit or not enter private at all. If this number of people quit, we will in fact be losing money as more tax payers £ are needed per child - why is the govt gambling with children)

@buckingmad. It’s a jealousy tax. It won’t stop the ultra wealthy but as per usual it will squeeze the aspirational middle. Just like every other tax policy!

Just another barrier to social mobility. Too many common folk getting a good education and moving up the ladder its becoming a threat to the elite - time to raise the bar a bit.

The level of education at private schools should be the level of education for all schools. Small personal class sizes, PE and sports that are enjoyed, along with flexibility and attention.
there should be more specialty schools and units for children with SEN.
Rather than pulling from the private sector the state sector should be improved.
governments always find funding for a pet project, if they really wanted to improve education they could.
but with declining birth rates it might be a self fulfilling prophesy in 50 yrs time. Same as housing really wait a generation and it will all be fixed.

If, in worst case scenario, 40% of the 6% move to state, that will be 2.4%- less than one child in every class- hardly swamped snd there will be very little marginal cost.Of course with the falling birthrate, the effect will be even less than this.
Additionally, the teachers released from the small classes, will plug the gaps in state schools

Interesting. So an absolute top (completely unrealistic) 1. 3% increase in the education budget which Labour think this could raise will make such a big difference to state education that it's worth all the negatives : children having to change schools, a set of citizens you don't like suddenly having an extra £4k tax bill....

But the education budget having to stretch to an extra 2.4% of children is insignificant and wouldn't cause a problem...

Or to put it another way, since Labour are promising 6500 extra teachers from this money

There are currently 468,000 state school teachers in the UK for 8,890,000 students. That's 19 students per teacher.

If you had 2.4% fewer students (the insignificant, marginal amount of private school kids who you suggest will just fill the spaces of falling student numbers) then to have the same student/teacher ratio, you would need 11,232 fewer teachers.

So if you leave it all alone, let the student numbers drop instead of replacing them with private school kids, you've effectively gained 11,232 teachers. And these are real, existing teachers the schools actually have - not teaching vacancies they can't fill.

If on the other hand you bring in those 2.5% private school kids from the reduced VAT take, you'll get the money to pay for 60% of the 6500 teachers promised, say 4000 extra teachers.

4000 extra teaching vacancies with the policy versus 11,232 extra existing teachers without the policy.

Everyone is worse off from this policy. Not only private school kids but state school kids too.

If you tax education then university fees should be taxed as that is education.

Otherwise you are saying “tax them, not us” it’s all the same nuts and bolts.

Once Keir gets in, there will be no stopping him. Swimming lessons, ballet all extra lessons should be taxed if they are educational and a luxury. No child NEEDS Ballet. So therefore it’s a luxury.

Hopefully swimming lessons will be exempt as they are life or death. I pay for a maths and English tutor for my 15 year old as he needs it. I think that's fair enough if I should have to pay the vat on top of the tuition fees really. I say he needs it but it's not a life or death situation so I don't really see an argument for me not paying it. I think it would depend on how much the tutor earns overall though and they don't generally work many hours as children are at school during the day.

Where do we draw the line between essential and luxury with extra curricular activities? I would say the maths and English tuition is critical for someone who is struggling for any reason - a good grounding in both will have a positive impact on them for the rest of their life. But then how to define struggling…

ALL movement based extra curricular activities are essential to me as well. I say this as a child who despised PE in school, was always last to be chosen for any group and ended up with a hatred for all things physical as I grew up. It has taken until my 30s to move on from the feelings of failure.

The list goes on. As we can see, there is a very good reason education is VAT exempt and the entire population benefits. There is nothing in this policy that justifies messing with it. Just remember the privileged bubble who go on to have doors opened for them are not going to be affected by this in the slightest

There has been no mention of anything other than school fees.No vat for nurseries, unis, swimming lesson,tutors etc.
The mental gymnastics on these threads is something else!

@ageratum1 Labour are changing the rules re VAT on education, who is to say they won’t impose it on other educational establishments (especially when they find they need more money)

The primary purpose of the policy is to remove a social injustice, not to make money!

@ageratum1 so how are they proposing to pay for the additional teachers?

Firstly it won’t remove social injustice. Those at the top can afford the fees with increase and have the contacts to open doors. That will remain and the only people losing out are those in state or smaller private schools. Fast forward a few years when the true impact has hit, the ultimate loser will be the poorest because they will be priced out of any decent state schools when those who previously would have paid fees have moved into catchment and taken places.

Knowing the point above, is it worth losing money on such a policy?

With labours history, I genuinely believe they will start to tax other aspects of education once they lose money on this pointless policy

https://ifs.org.uk/publications/tax-private-school-fees-and-state-school-spending

There are some on the left who would advocate for this

Ah yes the report which thinks that if parents don’t have the money to pay VAT on fees and send their children to a state school instead, they would spend the money they didn’t have for fees on luxury goods thus paying the same VAT…. When it is much more likely that not only would they not go into debt to buy luxury goods, they would actually work less hours thus paying less income tax too.

Well they haven't thought that through properly then have they? It removes those at the less wealthy end of the scale and leaves the rich to benefit more.

Then places an additional burden on some state settings.

The IFS themselves have said that they failed to take account of the number of pupils in independant who have additional needs (and therefore additional costs) or the impact from the COL crisis meaning more parents than they initially assumed cannot accomodate fee raises. Whether due to an expected VAT raise or COL this September was the first time in 12 years there was a decrease (of 2.9%) of pupils going to independant rather than state education, and this was completely unexpected.

Chances are parents would be paying for tutoring if no longer sending their child to private school. Or if they are determined to keep child in private school they will reduce any spending on luxuries.

You might want to do the math on that marginal cost…

The falling birth rate is hitting KS1 mainly. Not all private school children are in KS1

And then there is immigration…