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.

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

this was written much more recently than 40 years ago

They don't need one because having an EHCP in an indi school is meaningless, it doesn't get you extra support. Parents pay for the 1-2-1 support and you don't need an EHCP to get that support.

I think Labour will simplify it. There is growing acknowledgement that SEND has exploded and needs solutions. But these will come from the state.

l would never have sent her to a private school even with an EHCP.

I wonder how many state school SENDCOs and state finance managers are looking forward to the impact of this policy

You think they will but they haven't said that they will. So this is a hope on your part.
They haven't said that they will increase funding for SEND

@IFollowRivers your question was why is it a popular policy? Read @OneWorldly4 post and the delightful reference to 'Tarquin' - that's why.

People don't care if another form of taxation would provide better outcomes for schools or whether inequalities within the state sector could be addressed some other way. They just rub their hands in glee at Tarquin being inconvenienced.

They are talking about making all state schools fantastic.

See I dont think they are. I'm very disappointed with their plans for education.

Again, I'm not voting tory. But I am genuinely concerned labour haven't grasped what's needed and just how much of a crisis SEN in particular is.

There’s no hope on my part. My Dd has an EHCP, so it’s immaterial.

But Labour has a better past history on special needs than the current shower. ( 25 years a teacher) They can’t be much worse.

No, I was responding to your particular post, you could send your child to a state school.
If people are sending their children to private schools then I'm assuming it's because they believe that private schools add value. If they didn't have that belief then why are they paying the fees? So if it's 'adding value' it should be subject to value added tax.

There's nothing in VAT law that says that if you apply it one part of a service or supply sector you have to apply it to everything in that sector. Not all types of food attract VAT, for example

That applies as a legacy issue only. Countries that zero-rated certain food stuffs before 1991 were allowed to maintain that. Many EU countries tax all food. It is far from clear if, in the entirely hypothetical case that UK sought to rejoin EU, we would be able to reactivate historical tolerances of that kind.

That is however a zero rating. Education is not zero rated - it is exempt across the EU.

I'm guessing that a huge number of SENCOs, of which I am one, don't think that this will affect their school. I work in a deprived area, I can't see that there will be a flood of private school children into my school. I'm voting Labour because the current government have devastated education. We are chronically underfunded. I'm nearing retirement and have seen both Conservative and Labour governments over 30+ years and things were much better under Labour. Look up the long term effects of Sure Start to use one example. Things were also better under John Major than they are under the current government. I hope it's a massive Labour landslide on Thursday.

Telegraph should be happy. It's one in the eye for the ECHR (which they would like scrapped), leftie human rights, and the opposite of the EU position on VAT on school fees. It's the true spirit of Brexit and what their readers voted for, and they knew what they were voting for (or so they told us at the time).

Is toilet roll "added value" then?
The reason indi schools don't pay VAT isn't due to tax breaks or that it is zero rated etc, it is because all education is exempt from taxation under EU law.

Also, likely illegal is not the same as actually illegal and of course parliament is sovereign, and it would be outrageous if a foreign court sought to tell us what to do in good old Blighty.

Bring on the VAT 😂

I'm a state school SENCO.

Most children with SEN don’t need 1:1 support or anything near that level of intervention or support. Hence they won’t need an ECHP or even meet the threshold for assessment.

I’m a state school senco. If this policy means our numbers will increase, that will be good news. We have a falling roll and will be making redundancies and composite classes unless we can get numbers up.

I do worry though if the moon will spin off its axis if VAT on school fees happens. It feels like Armageddon. But my doctor says I'm overreacting. He says I could just cut back on luxury holidays, car leasing and that I don't really need to spend £75k on a new kitchen. I think he is wrong though and that everyone else is just unreasonable. He told me to take a chill pill and relax.

You are superbly missing my pint.
The reason many kids with SEN in indi schools don't have EHCPs is because their parents can pay for 1-2-1 support so an EHCP is of no value in getting extra support.
Now Labour will exempt EHCPs there will be an increase in parebts applying because there will now be a benefit of having one.
Whether they are awarded or not is a moot point, the cost per pupil to the state of a child going through the process inc appeal will be greater than the amount of VAT brought in by that child if the EHCP is awarded. If an EHCP is awarded then there will an overall cost to the state with no VAT income to offset against it.

So the result is a cost to the state with no benefit.

I’m talking about the hypocrisy of Tory voters who by their own voting are opposing the UK staying in the EHCR, but who now happy to get the benefit from being part of EHCR if it means that their school fees won’t be been added on to. Human rights equality not being important for others, just for them.

I’m a Labour voter and i have an SEN child in private school. I will still vote Labour despite this policy I disagree with. This is because everyone around me and all of us in society desperately need public services like health and education to survive. And the Tories have been starving them to death for 14 years.

This Labour policy to add VAT to private schools is pure virtue-signalling and it’s infuriatingly so ill informed about SEN.

I’d like to note here that NOT ONE of the major parties has singled out the collapse of the UK’s SEN system on the Tories’ watch as being of manifesto concern. This is the level of ignorance and contentment with systematic inequality that we as parents are dealing with.

That’s not what value added means in terms of VAT.

The definition does not refer to the purchase of goods or services adding value rather it refers to paying tax on the added value needed to produce them.

+1 to this. It won’t bode well for elections beyond 2024 either.

I’ve been around and had more than a passing interest in politics long enough - and I’m by no means old - to know most people are definitely not tied to one political party. It’s a nonsense to assume people are “Tory” voters or “Labour” voters or whatever just because they agree or disagree with certain policies.

I’ve known people, who voted Conservative, who would prefer public transport was nationalised for instance. I’ve also known many people, who have voted Labour, who are more anti-immigration than that party would like to admit.

Leaving aside for now, as all the politicians do, the SEN families who can’t afford anything close to private school fees from family finances: it seems clear to me that type of SEN parents who have enough money to pay for the next term or two of private at any one time, are only doing it to get smaller class sizes for their kids.

Not because we enjoy worrying constantly about money for school fees, on top of the massive additional expense for special food, clothes, equipment, transport, housing, constant stress, lack of freedom to earn as high a salary as we could be doing, that parenting our SEN kids involves.

I’d say vanishingly few SEN kids needs in state schools or private schools are currently even close to being met, because of the crumbling state support system. That system now moves so slowly with a two year time lag to get an EHCP with assessment + appeals, plus time to be found a place at a special school because there aren’t enough places, that waiting for state support with a kid who can’t access school at all because it’s so busy and noisy in a class of 30+ … means that the kid will spend that waiting time not in school at all. There’s no free fulll time wrap around SEN childcare to be found while you’re waiting for all this to be sorted out as well as dealing with your kid in autistic burnout..

Like anyone else who can’t turn up to work, SEN parents still lose their jobs because we can’t work and look after a SEN child at home at the same time. So if parents can afford even a few terms of private school then in that situation, we’d do anything to try to help our kids plus keep our jobs and the roof over our heads.

By that logic all education should have VAT applied: universities, holiday camps, tuition, music, dance, art - all of it adds value and it all sits under the same education act currently. To unpin one, would be to unpin them all. Let’s see what the high court thinks, as that’s where this is heading.