Thread 2: VAT on school Fees- High court challenge

[EHCPerhaps]

Following on from thread 1
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/education/5160565-vat-on-school-fees-high-court-challenge

Background to legal challenge (not yet a case):
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13824931/amp/Single-mother-autistic-child-launches-High-Court-challenge-Labours-private-schools-VAT-raid-claiming-violates-daughters-right-education.html

Sorry to begin a new thread, OP, but your thread filled up very quickly!

No I think Quinn is just saying that so as many private school parents fund her legal case as possible. However, really she is fighting for all children with SEND. It’s hard enough having to raise a child with SEND and she has battled through the state system first. Like many other parents who had to go private as the state failed their DC. It’s not something she chose to do! She felt forced into it.

@DadJoke - I don’t know why you are trying to single me out.
I am against a tax on education in general, as well as having very strong feelings about it being downright punitive for parents who felt forced to go private due to SEND.

My feelings on the former are more convoluted. I think it restricts choice and I think it just fuels other forms of buying educational privilege like catchment housing and tuition, besides raising no revenue but most importantly for me, it lets loonies get away with restricting other people’s choices which offends me. It will be grammar and church schools next and that is where my DC go. So those are my reasons to general opposition but my feelings are not as strong as they are for kids with SEND and military families. The latter is fixed by the state covering the extra in full.
The impact on bursary provision also offends me somewhat. All significant bursaries need to be VAT exempt. You can’t ask a school to cover a bursary of 50 per cent but also have to cover a tax. It makes zero sense!

But as we said above, VAT on private schools is not a neat wealth tax, it is an anti democratic and anti HR tax on so called Tory voters, supposedly just like the WFA withdrawal. It is quite ridiculous really that we have come to this. Not a coincidence that it is put forward by a Cabinet of civil servants either and it should be resisted at all cost. Like someone else said, or else you pave the way for people voting in a Reform Tory coalition that will be extremely anti state at the next election.

It's an extremely neat wealth tax, as I've posted previously, almost entirely confined to the top 5% and concentrated in the top 1%.

It's nothing like the WFA withdrawal, which is a badly targeted unpopular mess.

And it's nice to see some state educated ministers, when the previous cabinet was 60% public-school educated.

No one who isn't already voting Tory is going to change their vote on this issue.

It’s a ridiculous tax and policy which is similar to other Labour failures

The non dom policy already changed

If only they get over their mental blockage and do the same for this one

Top 5% of what? Income not wealth I’m assuming. So it’s another income tax, but only on those with children at school age and one that can avoided by moving your child to state school and costing the state more than the tax. Hardly neat, more like ridiculous. Almost as if it was ideology first and then searching for justification.

No one who isn't already voting Tory is going to change their vote on this issue.

Don’t kid yourself, most people won’t want to see schools close or harm done to children. You’re not most people.

You do know that the Lib Dem’s are against this policy. Quite a few of us voted for them in the last election.

Thank you @Boohoo76.

And I wouldn't vote Tory in a month if Sundays actually.

They’ll need an extra push on this one, but will begin rowing back well before it reaches the ECHR. It’s been an eye opener for me though, I’ve never known a Government to be so dismissive or callous towards a group of children before (the 7%). Appallingly cruel behaviour. It’s not an option for us, but I’d be out the country for the next 4 years if it was.

Personally this won't affect me much. I'll pay it and then like so many at our school (who will easily pass the 11 plus) we will go to grammar school for secondary. But why should I, as a high earner, not then have to pay anything when people who are less well off are just trying to protect their SEN children (or actually are just choosing private - either way - it's unfair). I'll just be joining the ranks of "selfish" wealthy state school parents - as they say, if you can't beat them, join them.

It's been discussed on a number of similar threads - a lot of high earning families with very bright children are moving abroad, not because of VAT specifically but general climate and unis making it difficult for PS kids vs state ones. It's a very sad brain drain when the country really needs them but hey ho.

It doesn't matter how often you post it. It was nonsense the first time, it is nonsense now, and when you post it again (as I have no doubt you will) it will still be nonsense.

"At the 100th percentile, six in ten children go to private school. At the 95th percentile, however, this proportion is much lower, with only one in seven children in the private sector. While still much greater than the average, it is striking that only a minority of the affluent, top 5 percent families are paying for private education." Green Anders Henderson 2017

and:

"We also use the Longitudinal Study of Young People in England data to check the validity of our assumption that private school pupils belong at the top of the SES distribution. In fact, this analysis suggests that only around 35% of private school pupils belong in the top SES quintile (a further 30% are in the second SES quintile, and a further 25% are in the middle SES quintile)." Chowdry, Crawford Goodman 2011.

Hardly well "targeted", by any stretch of the imagination.

You do remember the last Government painted over a Mickey Mouse Mural in case it comforted some migrant children and gave them ideas.

And imposed a two child limit on Universal Credit?

"It affects 23% of households with children in the poorest fifth of the income distribution, but 38% of children in the poorest fifth of the income distribution. We estimate that 43% of children in households with one adult of Bangladeshi or Pakistani origin (400,000 children) would be affected by the policy when fully rolled out, compared with 17% of children in other households (2.4 million children)."

But no, you've never a known a policy this callously targeted towards children. Right.

I suggest you haven't been paying attention.

@DadJoke - you are completely wrong about the general population of voters, in any event.
At the moment, most think most children with SEND don’t have to pay it. They simply haven’t looked into the details of that. When the Government loses in the High Court, all hell will break lose just as it has with the 10 million pension voters. Labour miscalculated thinking people are willing to throw pensioners under the bus as a wealthier group overall than others. However, once the press digs into the nitty gritty and it becomes clear the Labour Party we’re happy to throw disabled children under the bus because they cannot vote, watch the tide change completely. The general public will just realise they have been tricked by the hypocrites yet again. And then on top of that you will get the right going on and on about the Human Rights Act and how we don’t need it etc. Tory hopefuls have already started that narrative to get back a few Reform defectors.

Stop conflating the WFA policy (which is deeply unpopular) with the VAT on private schools policies (which is highly popular.)

Stop conflating having SEN with being disabled. The 1.5m people with SEN in the state sector will roll their eyes at the sense of entitlement you are showing here. The 6.25% of people with SEN in the private sector can join the rest of us, and id there is no suitable provision, that's what the EHC is for. But they won't. Their wealthy parents will pay.

This issue has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with repealing the HRA.

You are flailing around trying to show any legitimate reason at all which doesn't out as "It's not fair to make us pay for private education." I believe Quinn. This case is for ALL the hard-done by top 5% who chose to pay for private schools.

I am not going round in circles on this any more. We will see if the court case is successful, and we will see if there is any major impact on the numbers of private school students. I am out.

If you are so keen on supporting SEN in the private sector, here is an organisation you can help.

sossen.org.uk/

Popularity doesn't mean much. People were keen on the Nom Dom changes but Reeves has rowed back because it's bad policy

Same with the VAT although they will probably keep it, which is a pity for dc

Death by a thousand cuts, the pool of people of who actually pay for everything will continue to decrease as people go where they (and their children) are welcome.

"This case is for ALL the hard-done by top 5% who chose to pay for private schools."
That was faster than I expected.

Francis Green, professor of Creative Writing in the UCL Institute of Education, argues that to reduce educational inequality, parental demand for private schools should be lowered, and this might be achieved in two ways, first put VAT on fees, second:

"Require universities (through funding leverage) to offer more strongly weighted preferential access to children from disadvantaged, and specifically non-private-school pupils – an intensification and targeting of current university access policies." (My italics) Green, F. (2022), ‘Private schools and inequality’, IFS Deaton Review of Inequalities.

Discuss.

The problem with these proposals is that both are very likely to drive higher earning families abroad. There comes a point where families say “enough is enough”. Many are already thinking this way and moving to countries where their skills and well educated children are welcomed. Why on earth would any 18 year old choose to stay in the UK if they are constantly being told that the better they do, the harder they’ll be hit, and that they’re no longer welcome at universities. Interestingly though, Cambridge Uni has recently dropped their state school admission targets, presumably because they realise it’s not an effective way of ensuring they attract the best students.

Yep, that's me. I am looking for jobs abroad. I am absolutely fed up of the UK and am lucky enough to have a European passport and skills that can be used elsewhere. I am also sending my daughter to university in Europe where it's free. I am no longer willing for my already huge taxes to support useless government spending.

@Another76543

Another problem is that the esteemed professor and his mates make a living producing "research" that typically starts off with a falsehood, and therefore it would be foolish to take any notice of their recommendations. In this case, we have:

"The greatest schooling inequality by a very long distance lies in the resources gap between the private (fee-paying) and state sectors. With access limited by ability to pay, there exists a stark socio-economic segmentation of pupils between the sectors, yielding in effect a two-tier system... I argue – on the basis of both common sense and substantive evidence from recent literature on educational production functions – that the prime factor behind their effects on educational performance is likely to be the huge resource gap between the sectors."

It sounds OK but it doesn't bear scrutiny. He is referring to a less than twofold difference in resources, but on some outcomes (which is arguably a more worthwhile metric) the top quintile of state schools and the bottom vary by a multiple that is more than ten times larger.

Furthermore, if 85% of the wealthiest 5% (and half of the top 1%) send their children to state schools, It is not credible that they have chosen the lower tier of a "two-tier" system; and indeed they have not - outcomes from the state schools that they use are the same as from private schools, despite having half the resources.

So our professor started off with a set of recommendations, worked backwards to provide a rationale for them, and came up short - because all state schools are not the same, contrary to this and other academics' putative "two-tier system" on which pretty much all of this is based.

@Marchesman

Don't let the facts get in the way.

There's such an attention grabbing policy suggestion and you're trying to rationalise it.

No. I explained why the recommendations are entirely irrational.

Nailed it @DadJoke

Bye then! I am a European passport holding ( and UK) high earner. I’ll stay here, pay my taxes, continue sending my kids to state schools and be grateful that universities an option for them, wherever they go.
You do you. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.