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 wasn't suggesting that at all. I was suggesting that if a parent feels that the particular state school they've been offered isn't meeting their child's needs then puts them in private and then that child goes on to make discoveries that benefit society, those parents have contributed their own money towards a public good. So why disincentives that? Like you say, many excellent state schools carry in turning out doctors and scientists alongside the private. Nobody's education is being harmed by somebody else paying for it. Education is a good thing for society. And you can never have too much of a good thing.

"It is almost always because they want something better than the state provision on offer"
It might also be that they cannot afford the house price in the area with good schools. Altrincham - very good secondary schools - quite a lot of good schools - also has house prices which can be more than two times fourteen years of private school fees at Manchester private schools.
School fees are cheaper than a house move for some.
School standards - I am told by a friend supply teacher - can be 3 years difference between Altrincham and other places.
Consequence? 20% plus increase of house prices in Altrincham would be my prediction. Feel free to check in 18 months time!

“So let's be clear. Are you saying children having to leave their private school is up there with the trauma of displaced refugee children from war zones or those fleeing the violence of their father and that an appeals panel would view those appeals as such? That was the specific point I made regarding what would be the kind of circumstances that would be considered traumatic displacement in my LEA. Special needs cases aside, I think most people would consider that to be on a different level.“

An appeal panel will not be specifically comparing a displaced private school child to a refugee. Why are you bringing that into it just for effect? And making this an immigration issue indirectly? Which it is not!

An appeal panel will simply be considering the impact on the displaced private school child. Yes, I think it could be very traumatic for a child to leave their school, to witness the financial stress amongst the parents, to have to listen to the parents talking about the stress of moving/mortgage vs school fees etc.
The impact to be considered is entirely on what happens with the DC mentally and educationally speaking surely and has to be weighed against the detriment to the school of admitting that child.
And as I said very clearly, there is the academic route in - we all know which types of state schools teach the very academic language subjects also taught in private schools. It tends to be the most sought after state schools where there is demand for those.

Grammar schools are not just “technically” state schools as alluded by another poster. Many get low funding and do an incredible job with the little funding they have by working in close partnership with the largely supportive parent group and holding onto experienced staff and prioritising the retention of that staff, regardless of cost, above eg facilities maintenance. The good head teachers there are doing what their particular community wants. But there are also staffing issues in some grammar schools. Nobody has been unaffected by the funding & staffing crisis in the state sector.

I would be very wary about equating grammar school to private school. Grammar schools tend to be very focused on results and less on depth of knowledge or personal development/nurture.

My DC's education is sorted, thank you.

What I mean by "technically" is that grammars are very different from state comprehensive in many ways - the intake, the way of teaching etc. So when you see "state" in a stat graph for medicine, that may well mean "grammar", not "comp" (though of course there are excellent comps and scientists from the state sector). Birbalsingh's school, for instance, is "technically" a state comp from a deprived area - it's excellent because of her approach to teaching. Labour hate her.

There are lots of nuances you don't see in the stats.

(a) Grammar schools are not just technically state schools. They are state schools.
(b) Inaccurate.Private schools have much more leeway to pick and mix exam boards than state schools do. Also, the grades for Medicine are typically A*, A, A at A level and that's the easy bit. The UCAT medical school entrance exam is much harder to ace than A levels. Typically you need to be in the top 10% of all applicants in UCAT score just to secure an interview. You are also expected to do copious volunteering on top whilst sitting your A levels and acing the UCAT in parallel. Believe me, it really is not a walk in the park for any applicant, no matter which type of school they come from.
(c) Tutoring is rife in Caucasians across both sectors. It is not exclusive to ethnic minorities.
(d)This comment suggests that you do not understand widening participation. This is particularly pertinent to Medicine. Medical schools are not just recruiting for a university course. They are recruiting the doctors of the future and they just want the best ones, irrespective of the type of school they come from or their colour or creed. The most they will do will be contextualise academic results and make a minor adjustment and sometimes make minor adjustments for underprivileged children applying from local communities. In any case, as I said getting the necessary A level results is the easier part of the medical school application process.

Still not 93:7 but 70:30 which tell a lot. I don't think the figures are telling you what you think they are. If you look at A level students, 20% are in private at sixth form level so you should be comparing that figure with the medical school private/state split. The actual figure of Medical School students that are from private schools is 28.5%. You can probably explain the skewing just with the fact that many medic children have medic parents and medics traditionally tend to favour private education. Many more doctors' children are likely to be applying.

And they’ll be able to afford the VAT with their bumper pay rise.

It all works out, you see.

“I would be very wary about equating grammar school to private school. Grammar schools tend to be very focused on results and less on depth of knowledge or personal development/nurture.“

More stereotypical nonsense. Lots of grammars have excellent extra curricular offerings because the cohort gets through the syllabus quicker. And have really good eg supracurriculars put on by Sixth Formers running eg academic clubs. Music tends to be good etc and many offer more languages and Classics but may not offer less academic subjects like some comps.

Maybe the elites do not see education as a good thing for a society? Too many clever people, you know.
Just saying...

It is not a bumper pay rise. It is only a partial restoration of previous pay levels which have been significantly eroded over the years. A newly qualified doctor currently earns less than they would working in Aldi. So I don't think it really has been working out. But that is a whole other topic not for this thread.

Thats not my experience, but I appreciate that “grammar schools” vary across the country. It would be interesting to hear from people who’d made the move.

Yeah. It was a tongue in cheek (lingua in buccal mucosa) comment. But do crack on.

Sorry, in my field it's not something we joke about.

What field is that? Po-facediatrics?

Clearly the person I was originally responding to doesn't see it that way. They were arguing that SEN children should be exempt from VAT, but anybody using private school 'because they want something better than the state offering' should be subject to the 'too much education tax'. Education, like sugar, needs to be rationed. (Unless you're diabetic)

a) please see above for the context of the term.
b) I specifically stated "selective private" (=academic). They tend not to work the grades system at the cost of diluting pupils' knowledge. Non-academic private do whatever their clients pool want them to do - some may want to study ceramics and fashion, it has nothing to do with academic results and it's fine. We're not talking about them I suppose, as they are not for insecure middle classes who are hit by VAT.
c) "ethnic" does not equate "non-Caucasian".
d) oh we do - people moving children from private to state more and more as they DO understand what "widening participation" means 😂

Re. medics - interestingly enough, many medics I know from DC2 school discourage their children from taking their path.

That post is fine you might not agree but it’s calm and not unhinged

No you absolutely don't understand widening participation if you are making such ignorant comments. It's just that when you have been used to unfair for so long and things become a little bit fairer, it all feels so unfair. All the tropes about widening participation are also a convenient face saving device for those whose children are not bright enough to make the cut now that the competition is tougher because clever state school children are being encouraged to apply for the top spots. Some of my best clinical trainees have been from the most deprived backgrounds. They have not been given anything for nothing.

I am guessing that I know many more medics than you do if yours are restricted to your children's schoolmates. Believe me, many DC do still follow in their parents' footsteps. If we are talking anecdotes, my own DC have, despite us making the reality as clear as we possibly could to them. Despite it being a tough gig, many of us still consider being able to practice medicine as a privilege. My family wouldn't want to do anything different.

RTFT

Or maybe just bringing a bit of much needed perspective to the party?

The government needs to find a source of proper funding rather than diverting people's anger onto the tiny private sector.

Well I agree with this

Oh look an incredibly successful sector that serves happy children, produces well educated adults, improves U.K. reputation
<boggle> this may describe a small subsection of this population but isn’t how most experience or perceive the traditional public school experience.