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.

Ooo interesting. Ok I will re-discuss with him.

People arn’t being denied the right to education here - they just can’t afford it now on their middle class income.

That’s the wriggle room I guess, Labour will tie themselves in knots trying to divide education services into different categories to just target middle class children (think Jaffa cakes biscuits/cakes and warm/cold greggs passes). It won’t work though.

I can’t see Labour wanting to charge VAT on all educational services, not just yet anyway ..maybe that’s a year 2 thing.

Ask your husband to consider whether the government would be breaching the right to family life (and our right to not be discriminated against in any human rights) if they put a substantial tax on non-church weddings, but no tax on church weddings.

If you attend church regularly, you can have a church wedding for free.
Not everyone was able to afford a non-church wedding, even before the tax was applied.

But more people can't afford a non-church wedding now when the tax is added, and some of those people are atheist.

Those atheists are being denied a wedding which is in accordance with their beliefs, purely through government policy.

If he's still unconvinced, then consider whether it changes things that the government had previously tried to get rid of non-church weddings altogether, because they believe that everyone should get married in church.

And that the tax is unlikely to bring any money in once the costs of collecting it have been paid - so there's no financial advantage to bringing in the tax. Just fewer non-church weddings, because fewer people can afford them. Which is what the government wants for ideological reasons.

Still legal?

It's actually a bit of a stretch, because we don't have an explicit human right to get married according to our beliefs. We'd have to tie it to the right to family life.

But we do have an explicit right to educate our children according to our beliefs (that right is limited by our children's right to a suitable education. The government also has no obligation to provide exactly the education we choose. But they're not permitted to prevent us from providing a suitable education in accordance with our beliefs)

So taxing private schools but not other forms of education is actually worse than taxing only non-religious weddings.

It’s a view, sure. And a perfectly valid one.

But then so is that of Lords Pannick and Lester.

I’m not married to either of them. But as far as I know - and no doubt your husband would agree - they are both very eminent barristers.

Although I use a private school, if they all closed because the state schools were so good nobody wanted to pay, I would be happy with this. But instead we have death by a thousand cuts.

That echos everything I have seen. And gets worse in poorer areas and in the north particularly small towns. No money from the PTA, no tutoring, lots of depreciation and negative views and little movement out of quite small locations.

If you are white and male you have already got a trump card. You may not be a high trump but outside of your suit you are going to win again and again and again. Thats the reality.
The demographic you have identified are not in fee paying schools.

All barristers can do os Interptet the law te government have written

the right of a tiny elite majority to access a superior education to everyone else is never going to win and I don't think Starmer is going to be deterred by this for one second!

Yeah right. That's why the suicide rate in white male is second highest https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/healthinequalities/bulletins/sociodemographicinequalitiesinsuicidesinenglandandwales/2011to2021

“the right of a tiny elite majority to access a superior education to everyone else is never going to win and I don't think Starmer is going to be deterred by this for one second!”

This country is over-reliant on the tax take from highly skilled professionals, often internationals especially in banking and tech. Those are in high demand globally. Those are skilled and apparently shortage sectors.

This is not a question of Starmer being deterred. The courts if claims are brought will adjudicate in accordance with existing legal principles.

The OBR and executive though needs to make sound financial decisions. If this policy backfires economically because it raises no money and deters those contributing the vast majority of taxes from staying or coming here, we are all screwed. And if that is the case and anyone champions that on, you are not patriotic or acting in the best interests of our country. You are the opposite, possibly another form of malign bot influence.

Legal and economic reality has to prevail.

Hence the interest in fee paying schools by those who have not paid or cannot pay high house prices. They know the disadvantage of their poor local schools. There might be “toffs” in the Eton type of school but not if you look at day schools.
And the disadvantages is real if you look at the youngsters. I agree that is not the case if you look at 40 plus.

That was my point.

Completely agree. We never contemplated moving abroad previously but in the last couple of years it has become increasingly attractive and is now one of the options we are considering, having been approached about a couple of roles last year. We had friends who took two DC out of private school and took the plunge last year and they're loving the quality of life.

@Upupandaway55 expat life has always been an option for those with portable skills. Realistically you earn elsewhere, come “home” on leave regularly, often maintain a property in the uk, return coffers full to spend into old age. I’ve never seen the figures but I suspect it isn’t the financial deficit people imagine. Of course people used to send their children back to board so flouncing may not be quite as beneficial now for the country. As I said I don’t know the figures.

@Upupandaway55 - my point goes further than that. There are numerous posters criticising that the private school VAT is so dominant on MN. The thing is we now know that eg Brexit was influenced by malign foreign forces. Slapping VAT on a successful UK sector is bad for our country full stop. Countries like Russia benefit if we lose talent and money because we send less cash to the Ukraine.

It is really stupid and green of Reeves and Starmer to pursue a policy like this. It goes so much further than private schools. And I think that is why it is so dominant on MN. Many of us can simply see that. Those advocating for this need to give their head a really hard wobble and try and understand where their influences have come from. This is not a time to mess things up. Just look at what is going on internationally in the Middle East etc. It is complete madness.

I am certainly against it and I also think the human rights laws have been taken far far far too far in many areas indeed and if Labour did something about that more generally it would be a good thing. Obviously we don't want to legalise torture or anything like that but some of ECHR has been extended well belong what it was ever expected to cover.

Your argument is just based around the fact you can’t afford to pay the VAT.

Does anyone know the logic for private school boarding to be subject to VAT but not state boarding fees? The fees to the state school are not for education they are for the boarding element so this does seem discriminatory

Patronising, much.
My head is perfectly fine.

So is my critical thinking.

I'd advocate greater equality - what influences your thinking? What sources do you cite? Have you read the Spirit Level, for instance.

Sunak wanted to bring in national service. His reason (apparently) was to get different groups to mix. A much better way would be to abolish private schooling altogether.

There is no logic other than the word "state" because you're right, they are paying for the boarding element which is no different to the boarding element at indy schools

Yes it’s always been an option, but it’s being made a more appealing one given the rhetoric against children. It seems clear to me that it’s a huge blow for a country when the top income tax earners leave, but I’m open to and would be interested to being persuaded otherwise if you wouldn’t mind sharing your thoughts.

There are many who will just pay VAT without batting an eyelid. They are not really represented on here as they are not bothered enough to follow the debate.

You don't think it's a financial deficit for the UK if someone has their childhood in the UK (expensive time for both health and education), leaves the country during their peak working years so their income tax goes into a different country's coffers (their healthiest, lowest-cost years for health), and then coming back to the UK in their older years (most expensive part of your life for health) when they generally have a lower income (not many people retire on their full salary) so not much if any income tax.

OK.