VAT on school fees - High Court Challenge.

[EverythingAllatOnceAllTheTime]

Labour’s plan to impose VAT on private school fees in January faces a High Court legal challenge over claims it breaches human rights law.

Lawyers have written to HM Treasury arguing the policy discriminates against special needs children and has threatened court action if it is not dropped.

Showtime…

Are you kidding @MrsBennetsPoorNerves? Because we're too busy doing the unpaid legal work to repeatedly take our LAs to the SENDIST tribunal to get our kids access to an appropriate education! I do need to earn a living as well. I can't spend all my time doing unpaid legal work.

This is the point: I know families at the smaller, cheaper private schools (the big ticket ones wouldn't touch most EHCP kids with a bargepole) who are working two jobs and having grandparent help to pay fees.

The legal challenges of a Tribunal would likely secure the fees, agreed. But most parents don't know that as schools constantly tell parents of able autistic kids that you can't get an EHCP if the child isn't two years behind. And the kids whose parents don't send them privately, or home educate (huge cohort) end up with their kids going on to a comprehensive and then being comprehensively destroyed by it.

A Tribunal right now takes a year. If the LA refuse to assess, and you appeal, that's one year. They have a further 24 weeks in theory to assess in (but ignore that, despite the law being very clear, and take around another year right now). They can then refuse to issue, which is another year. They can then, when made to issue, issue a shitty useless EHCP which means yet another appeal.

By that time, it's 4 years on.

Can you see why a desperate parent of an extremely disturbed child might take on an evening job, and remortgage, and beg family to help, instead?

I completely agree with this statement:

Surely, if people are trying to make this into a human rights issue, it has to be about the human rights of all children and not just those of wealthy parents?

...and so do I! Yet you want me to pay more?

I doubt you are a lawyer.

Lawyers will not ‘get rich’ from this - I deal with golden circle firms in my role.

You have an axe to grind, and are using your supposed profession to further that - I see it a mile away.

You are down playing how much a smaller class size can benefit a Sen child who gets sensory overload. For them sounds are louder, smells are stronger, less social relationships to navigate - a smaller class size can mean the difference between them coping and going to school and not coping and becoming school refusers.
We have twins - one in a brilliant free government school and one in private due to her not coping in the brilliant free government school due to her Sen needs. I agree I think the free government schools teaching is better than her private school. But we are more concerned about getting her physically into school than how well she does academically.

I was being facetious- children on higher rate DLA won’t be in traditional private schools. They wouldn’t take them. Hence all the talk about SEN kids being a read herring.

If you access luxury goods then yes, I want you to be accordingly taxed on those. Why wouldn't we?

By the way - any SEN parents reading this about the appeal system:

You can have a Tribunal brought forward to 3/4 months using the SEND 7 system if your child is approaching a major phase transfer (esp but not limited to being in Yr 6), or has very low attendance, or is out of school. You can also get a pre-action letter for judicial review issued to force the LA to assess inside the legal deadline. So if you are relentless and persistent, you can manage to reduce the process to 18 months or so. Happy to talk anyone through it if they want to PM me.

No- you could choose to use the free state provision. Same as your rich neighbour.

We have very small state school sizes where I live, and absolutely no private schools to send SEN kids away to. It seems to mostly work.

Yes and you are very privileged to be able to have this option. The vast majority do not.

Thank you for sharing your experience. It's been incredibly hard for children with SEN and disabled adults for oh so many years. Some posters are ignorant which is OK, but others are just evil people labelling a single mother with a disabled child "consumers of luxury". Shocking really.

One of mine is. Paid for by an EHCP, so this doesn't affect me. But I know plenty more. The big ticket, expensive independents would get out the garlic if anyone suggested she went, I agree. But smaller, cheaper independents offering a gentler, smaller scale environment take a lot of kids like mine. She's academically very, very gifted but also needs a one to one TA.

Higher rate means they don't sleep. That's the difference between medium and higher rate. My kids have slept like newborns all their lives - it's not uncommon. Melatonin gets them to sleep but doesn't keep them asleep. Sleep clinics have tried to help but it's an intractable issue.

Labour have very clearly positioned this as a hypothecated tax with over-privileged private school parents paying for state education: 6500 extra teachers and breakfast clubs for all.

If they genuinely want to start VAT-ing education, they should call it that. "Adding VAT to education" . Rather than "Adding VAT to private schools" .

Wonder why they're not?

Private education IS a luxury because not everyone can access it.

Wow! I wonder how many people on here pontificating and judging have a child with SEN or tried to get an ECHP? How many have been let down by the provision for a ND child in the state system?

My guess is not many, or either you have been privileged to get a fully supported place at a great state school.

The fight for support for an SEN child is very real, it’s exhausting, seeing your child struggle in a class of 30 plus children, not being able to read, because they process differently and no one is there to support them is heartbreaking, when you know they are actually very bright!

Instead, you send them to a private school, 16 in a class; at 7 they couldn’t read, at 8 their reading age is two years ahead. It’s costing nearly all your salary, £15,000 but you know you’re doing the best you can for your child and they fly!

imagine all that progress being taken away, because of an extra cost in their education?

With an eventual diagnosis of HF autism, Dyspraxia and Dyslexia, my child continues to fly and is off to the University of Surrey next week. She will be supported by Uni and has been awarded DSA - something else this Government are wanting to axe.

Not all those in private schools are loaded, 40% of our school were on bursaries on scholarships as they were talented. Their state school put them forward for entrance exams because they knew they could achieve far greater things.

I won’t apologise or feel guilty for doing what was right for my child, which is what many of you seem to want on here.

Then sort the EHCP system out so more can access it.

And for the record, the LAs love these schools. State specialist usually costs almost double - plus they're all full.

I have put 4 children entirely through private schools (Delphigirl- paying school fees since ummmm 2002) and so have no axe to grind at all, but am well able to identify that if the 20% means I can no longer afford fees (it doesn’t) it is not a human rights issue.

and you don’t deal with magic circle firms if you call them golden circle, which does not exist. And such firms rarely get involved in these sorts of challenges, it is not generally their area of law and not lucrative enough.

in fact everything in your post is wrong, so well done, that is quite difficult to achieve.

Hear hear!

Or perhaps they are encouraging the users of luxury goods and services to pay the appropriate tax?

Of course the rights of all children are paramount - but why is the whole nation not being held accountable for this rather than just the private school parents who have saved tax payers money over the years by paying for private school?
Labour has twisted the narrative that private school parents are responsible for the educational improvement of the governemt schools. Everyone says it’s just a small amount of parents affected by this so bo ho. And it is a small amount of parents - why not then increase taxes from the millions of tax paying adults in the uk and fix government schools for good? I mean even if people don’t have kids - they benefitted from the education system and must underhand an educated nation is beneficial for all?

I agree. Which is why vat should be charged on it.

They're trying to axe DSA?! Dear God, I didn't know that - still in the EHCP trenches, personally.

Well done and congrats on the uni place to your DD!

Absolutely - and we will at secondary BUT:

1. Then we won't be paying any VAT;
2. We will be costing the state for 2 x school places;
3. We'll be taking up 2 grammar school places and pushing up house prices;
4. I'll be having lots on nice foreign holidays and loading my pension.

You may think that's morally correct but it doesn't work economically.