Labour’s private school tax raid ‘likely illegal’

[Zizzagaaaaaww]

Thought some may like to read this article

archive.ph/i1XD3

Sir Keir Starmer’s planned VAT raid on private schools is likely to breach human rights law, The Telegraph can reveal.
The Labour leader risks falling foul of European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) law <a class="break-all" href="https://archive.ph/o/i1XD3/www.telegraph.co.uk/money/tax/labour-private-school-tax-moronic-policy/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">over his party’s flagship policy, one of Britain’s top constitutional and human rights lawyers has warned.
Lord Pannick, who has taken on some of the UK’s most high-profile court cases, backed legal advice warning that making private schools subject to VAT was likely to breach ECHR law.
He told The Telegraph: “It would be strongly arguable that for a new government to impose VAT on independent schools would breach the right to education.

“That is because all other educational services will remain exempt from VAT and the charging of VAT on independent schools alone is designed to impede private education, and will have that effect.”

The KC and crossbench peer said that the Labour policy risked breaching two articles in the ECHR which protect the right to education.
He referred to legal advice written in response to Labour policies as far back as the early 1980s, when the country’s most senior lawyers warned that plans to end tax exemptions for private schools or abolish the institutions altogether would likely breach international human rights law to which Britain is signed up.
Previous leaders of the party have floated the idea of taxing private schools as part of plans to integrate them into the state sector. Under former party leader Michael Foot, the Labour manifesto of 1983 pledged to “charge VAT on the fees paid to [private] schools”.
The policy to abolish the schools was eventually shot down by senior lawyers, who argued it could be at odds with the ECHR and spoke specifically about the risk of imposing VAT.
While Sir Keir has ruled out abolishing private schools, he plans to force the institutions to pay business rates and 20pc VAT on tuition fees.
In an unearthed legal opinion from 1987, seen by The Telegraph, the late Lord Lester and Lord Pannick, prominent human rights lawyers, concluded a government “could not lawfully prohibit fee-paying, independent education or remove the benefits of charitable status or impose VAT in respect of such education” while a member of the court.
A foreword to the opinion written in 1991 by Lord Scarman, who served as a Law Lord in the precursor to the Supreme Court, said it would “encourage a challenge which could be mounted by taking the argument to the [ECHR]… if ever a government should seek to abolish or discriminate against [private schools]”.
The opinion was jointly written by Lord Lester and Lord Pannick as advice for the Independent Schools Council (ISC) and later published in its journal. Lord Pannick confirmed his belief that the argument still stands today.

The irony is this is the legal argument Labour accepted over 2 decades ago. Now they are ignoring it.

As much as I’d like to believe this, I think Keir Starmer KC’s got to be a nincompoop if he doesn’t know this already. They must have something up their sleeves…

I wouldn’t bet on it. This has simply become populist hence Starmer jumping on it. No related economic plan has been put forward and if this is Labour’s main educational policy then it’s actually really quite poor. The current annual state 5k allocated funding per child which is being channelled into school budgets for each private pupil not taking up a state place will be lost for each private school pupil moving to state. The gain in VAT raised funds will be offset against that loss. Any additional monies gained will be a drop in the ocean of what is needed to actually improve state education.

Given what the Telegraph has been publishing recently, I would take this with a large pinch if salt

Haha you can hear the desperation in this latest drivel from the Tory press.

How are their human rights impacted exactly, when they have a choice to use state schools instead?

Good one, I needed a laugh.

The Telegraph is a comic.

I don't think we'll know until a future Labour govt is actually challenged in the ECHR, but either way, this isn't going to be easy law to implement. And a challenge is inevitable.

I don't think it'll be imposed very quickly because if they want any chance of succeeding, they're going to have to create some very very carefully written law, and that takes time.

Clutching and straws

Except it is true. The report was done 20 years ago and Labour accepted it, only now they have decided it doesn't exist. Telegraph haven't commissioned the report, they are just saying what's in it.

I suspect Labour are regretting targeting private school fees as their way of showing the hard left in the party that they are going to tackle the elite. The whole issue has backfired primarily because they didn’t really understand the issue in the first place or investigate the potential pitfalls before pushing the policy front and centre.

They're now left in a bit of a mess whereby it will be difficult to implement fairly but equally they have no exit strategy without losing face. If they go ahead with it you can guarantee on day 1 you’ll have a special needs child on the news who no longer has a school to attend. That won’t play out well as they’ll soon have to admit it is an ideological policy rather than an economic one and will therefor have to justify harming kids is somehow worth doing for the greater good.

Did the Torygraph take into account “human rights” when many children were forcibly barred from education in 2020 and 2021? Or was it cheering on prolonged school closures?

I cant imagine the Telegraph were pro extending school closures during Covid any more than any other media outlet. Why would you think that?

https://www.counselmagazine.co.uk/articles/abolishing-private-schools-and-redistributing-their-assets-social-justice-at-the-expense-of-human-rights

This explains the reasoning quite well. There is case law which backs up the view.

It will certainly be interesting to see any ECHR challenges after all the talk of closer alignment with the EU.

Ah, yes - the plight of Britain's most privileged families. I'd forgotten that was one of the big issues this election.

Raid? 🫣

@Charlie2121 i suspect you're right about Labour regretting it. As for a possible EHCR challenge, the predictable cries of 'how ridiculous, poor little Tarquun moaning about his human rights' are irrelevant. These sorts of legal cases are decided at a much higher level than the class war bickering on MN around the VAT policy. If there is a challenge, that will be decided at a legal principle level, far removed from the squabbling. If the court decides that the legislation breaches human rights principles, regardless of who the 'victim' is, then that's what they'll decide. I'm not saying that will happen - but if it does, it will be decided at a somewhat more principled level, which is quite correct

Counterpoint here
https://x.com/DanNeidle/status/1806732361838592115?t=T9ZAFVy8hXCBxRzsEqLzJg&s=19

I think you have to be fairly out of touch and pig headed to believe your human rights have been infringed by going to the same schools the vast majority of the population do. It’s ridiculous. Ignore.

Indeed, my understanding is they have refused to engage directly with the private sector too, including private schools with specialism in Sen. Unfortunately, it feels more about ideology over pragmatism.

It would be interesting to see how lawful this is in terms of specifying only VAT on 5-18 year olds education and not nursery, universities and other areas. Feels very targeted, hence this has to be about ideology. The income from the VAT will be a drop in the ocean as PP have said, and frankly just a guesstimate of what they could "earn" from this policy. The disruption to the system, however, might well be regrettable.

It's an utterly fake manifesto promise they have no intention of actually doing. Lying scumbags.

They have refused to engage with any independent schools or parents. Bridget Phillipson hasn't set foot in an indi school even though she has been invited numerous times.

To repeat, it's irrelevant whether it's 'out of touch'. The high court will care purely about the legal principle.

It isn't about that. It's the fact that under a tested case it was found to be illegal. Labour knew that and previously accepted the ruling, this time they are ignoring it.

That’s not really the point. The problem Labour has is that for a policy that raises virtually nothing they are going to be presented with a huge amount of negative impact to consider. Whether that comes from ECHR, OBR, schools themselves or anyone else for that matter it all starts adding up to Labour having to admit this isn’t an economically literate policy and won’t help anyone. That is not a good place for Labour to find themselves.

Maybe if from the start Labour had presented this as an ideological policy and stated that harming some children was a fair price to pay for what they see as a social benefit then people could have decided if they agreed with that approach. As it is we have the ridiculous situation whereby supporters of the policy are clinging on to the notion that this policy somehow solves the state school funding issue when all evidence suggests otherwise. Of course if supporters of the policy admit this then that leaves them confirming they want to harm children for ideological purposes which nobody wants to admit to.