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.

I really don’t think there’s a “had it coming” attitude. I think most people think it’s a good idea.

Well, from all the glee it excites, I would disagree, but perhaps I am being oversensitive. Most people think it's a good idea because they disagree with the existence of private schools, not because it's actually a good policy. If critical thinking is actually applied then it's clear the policy doesn't offer much benefit to anyone, but it will really hurt some families. Unfortunately the dislike of (or perhaps disinterest in) the sector as a whole overrides any desire to really engage with the counterarguments and leads to a completely impregnable wall when it comes to empathising with those affected.

I haven’t heard anyone express glee. Most of the people I’ve discussed it with aren’t anti private/public schools being available to those that can afford it.

Ah, interesting, so because I'm not quite rich enough to afford for fees to go up by 20% I was getting ideas above my station and I should never have enrolled my kids in the first place?

I’m not sure what you mean by your last post. Everyone “isn’t rich enough” for some things they want.

Yes, everyone has things they can't afford. But you're happy to support a policy which puts something out of reach for even more people? Why?

Because I think it’s a luxury service that’s being provided and should be taxed.

For me the issue is that my kids are already there, they are settled, they are happy. This isn't a purchase I am about to make, it's a commitment I have already made. If Labour had been in power when we made that decision, we might have accepted the grammar school place for our daughter and fought harder earlier for our son's ECHP, but we made the decision on the situation as it stood at the time. I don't think it's right that the policy should go ahead when it risks forcing children like mine out of their current settings.

And there it is - the prejudice.... It's not a luxury service. It is how education should be for all children. We should be lifting up the state sector not dismantling the private

Ok, I shouldn't have accused you of prejudice, but can't edit my post again, so apologies for that. However, I did not choose private because I was trying to buy an elite education. I chose it because it offered what I felt had been lacking in my children's state settings. My daughter's teacher the year she left didn't even know who she was and my son was accused of being lazy when in fact it turned out he is severely dyslexic. Paying independent fees to have their needs met does not feel like a luxury choice. They should have been easily met in the state system and that had been the plan, but it didn't work out and as PS was just about affordable it felt like an option we had to take. All of that is now at risk and it's quite hard to hear that all that stress and worry and stretching to afford it is distilled down into 'well everyone isn't rich enough for some things they want'. It completely overlooks the human element of how this will hurt some families. On a simple level, I understand the sentiment. Many people would not have had that choice, but personally, I think there needs to be room within that principle to avoid causing disruption to children, by a staged introduction or some such. I still fundamentally disagree with the policy, but the way it is being talked about and imposed is brutally top down and stirring up the public. That, I think, is very wrong.

I think you are building a picture to fit your narrative. I don’t believe I am prejudice in the way I think you mean nor am I blind to the fact that you would rather this wasn’t happening. I think there’s been lots of warning and that if necessary children can stay on to the end of the year.

I'm not sure what you mean by building a picture. I already tried to retract the prejudiced comment as I realised that wasn't really what I meant. I understand what you're saying, I think, but don't agree with it.

I've heard nothing about children staying to the end of the year, but even so that doesn't really cut it. In year is worse, but any move is disruptive when it's not a choice. Why should that be forced on anyone, least of all children? I guess that's the whole illegality point though - it's the government's interference which is forcing our hands.

But what if those children are in Y10?

What state school will even want them starting Y11 with different exam boards and options?

Some parents won't be able to magically find an extra 20% for 5 terms of fees. They may have been hoping to save this year to get them to the end of GCSEs. Ditto A level students.

I would imagine either they will find the extra terms fees (5*20%) over the 16 months OR they will move their child and save 5 terms fees.

You say that as if it's a perfectly reasonable think to expect families to do. It just isn't. It's a lot of upheaval at a critical educational stage. Forcing people to choose between financial hardship and stability for their children is just wrong. And Labour on the one hand say parents have had notice and should have planned and then on the other said schools don't need to pass on the cost. Meanwhile they have refused to to engage with those it affects to provide any detail to actually enable that planning. It's a complete and utter cluster fuck.

Those that actively welcome this policy won’t see your side of it. Nor the impact on children who have to move.

It probably doesn’t matter if no money is raised or the gap between the elite and everyone else gets bigger. It’s depressing but too many want this extra tax without thinking it through.

I agree - I said up post that the benefits of this policy don't stand up to scrutiny once critical thinking is applied. This is why it needs to be decided in court. I might not be able to change anyone's mind or get their empathy, but that won't stop me trying to challenge the lack of critical thinking on this. It's simply not justified to hurt families in the name of some high ideal of fairness when the principle and action do not actually have any bearing on each other. I'm just horrified that our politicians would open this can of worms and encourage what is at best a cold and at worst outright hostile attitude on the part of the public. It's dehumanising and sets a very worrying precedent.

I know whenever it was raised the same glib line was used in defence

Some people are going to get hit with this tax for little benefit. Bar for the politicians who get to spin a line. I don’t think people who want it will see the issues.

I really feel for children who are impacted for so little generally, probably negative overall

As always it’s a mistake to think that people who disagree with you “just don’t understand” or don’t care or are doing so to be unkind. Many of them will have direct experience of the situations you describe. Personally despite being strongly supportive of the existence of fee paying schools, I do think vat on their fees is appropriate (and for transparency would support the removal of their charitable status). I think they are businesses and behave like businesses and so should step up and pay their way like everyone else. I’m not sure what possible argument could be scrabbled together to object to that.

So university education should also be subject to VAT, after all they too are businesses.

A purely utilitarian one. That unlike most private businesses, private education directly saves the government money, and imposing the tax - hence reducing private education take up - will make society overall worse off financially (whilst also seriously harming a small number of individuals).

This is immediately obvious in the short term, with the direct per-child cost of state education to the government. There are more pernicious harms such as reduced working hours (and income tax take) for parents, and loss of attainment in individual students (which would have benefited the UK long term).

You might disagree with those predictions of consequences. I think independent economic analysis will be necessary to see whether they came about. I hope that analysis is done early enough (and carefully enough) to reverse the policy if necessary before permanent harm is done.

Although the impact on individual children is awful and is a big part of the short term argument, I actually think that schools haven't been doing to counter the ideological argument (probably because they're scared of the reaction they'd get). IMO there's a lot that could be said in private schools' defence against the whole luxury service argument, which is barely being talked about.

• the principle that education is a fundamental social good, whoever is receiving it (which is why the entire EU thinks all education should be tax exempt)

• provision of services and facilities to the local community (some do the bare minimum but others do loads - and the first group could be made to do more)

• positive financial contribution to society as a sector - whether by attracting inward investment, expenditure on UK industry (who's building all those lovely buildings?), reducing the government education spend, encouraging parents to earn more and pay more income tax

• local employment, which is very significant in some areas

-the prevention of education being a state monopoly in the hands of politicians, allowing more innovation

• keeping some subjects viable eg high level classical music and dance, Classics, and increasingly modern languages (German teaching in state schools fell by 15% in just the last couple of years)

On that last point, I know some people would argue that either those subjects aren't important (which is a very depressing argument against cultural diversity, but also ignores things like the massive popularity of TV programmes about the Romans or more mainstream classical music performance), or that these things should be accessible to all children - which I agree with, but they're not, and I'd rather they were still surviving and accessible to some people, than dying out altogether.

All of those things are reasons why private schools have benefits for society as a whole, rather than just the minority who attend them.

Well of course not you are wedded to your views

Even with many rational posts from pp

Personally I think a return to grants and dropping the student loan idea would massively improve future prospects for all, but they’re not really comparable to fee paying schools.

Apparently the Greek communists tried taxing private education and had to row back because it caused mayhem. I wish I knew more details about that situation. It would be easier to guess whether we will experience similar unintended consequences.

If Greece did do this, it was in the EU and subject ECHR. So taxing education must not be against the “rules” of either body. So no one is coming to save Britain.

I think taxing education is shocking and immoral. We really are scraping the bottom of the barrel. No other country in the world tries to draw a line between “education” and “luxury education.” It looks petty, mean spirited and a bit Maoist. Doing so is highly illiberal. It tramples over an unpopular minority, ignoring principles in favour of playing to the braying crowd. It interferes with freedom of association and families as the key unit of society.

It gives a lot away about Labour’s instincts and inclination. Whatever next?

Those crowing should consider what the next personal freedom to be curtailed in the name of the greater good will be.