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!

I think all councils know fine well that appeals are likely to be successful, @Araminta1003. Parents win over 90% of them! This is far higher than success rates in challenging other dodgy government decision making.

It is a delaying factor, pure and simple.

I'd find it unbelievable too if I hadn't been through it.

I quite agree. If only this received the same amount of airtime, generous donations and passionate arguments as VAT on school fees.

And the same amount of focus from the government too. Whose responsibility it is.

Hopefully that will come to pass. Give the Labour Government a chance. They ate already talking about rebandinf council tax to hopefully give LAs more money.

Higher taxation on high value properties which are realistically banded on current values is also a fair way of taxation.

That should offset all the anger at the people who bought expensive houses in good catchments too.

The SEN system being in crisis isn’t a new situation either, unfortunately. There was an unsuccessful high profile case several years ago challenging the government’s funding for SEN. Here is an article about it.

Bridget Phillipson’s post on X yesterday has 1.4 million views after 17 hours and over 3k comments!

Not the 93%

Only the morons who get riled up by the government's rhetoric about unfairness and subsidy. (your word, not mine)

It's going to be a long 5 years.

They appear also to be removing, where possible, any comments criticising them on social media.

On a completely separate note, i thoroughly recommend Ian Dunt's book How Westminster Works and Why It Doesn't.

It is pretty scathing about our political system and why it is terrible for long term policy ans investment.

He explains in details why education policy is such a mess, and the structural reasons things got so much better (for a while) under Blair. They were practical not political.

You may not like Starmer, and I'm not his biggest fan, but he js a technocrat and has experience of running large institutions. I'm hoping he will make some positive structural changes.

I mean his team currently seem to be eating each other and it might be wishful thinking.

Oh such woe, you also have the option of sending your children to private school and educating them as you please. Not only can you pick a system more suited to them, you’ll save the taxpayer £7k per per year.

Labour are trying to limit (in contravention of ECHR) education options for you and for every other parent, they think the country is stupid and gullible enough to fall for their divisive identity politics. Wake up.

@Mrsbabbecho I do hope your children's private schools are teaching them more skills of persuasion and charm than you are exhibiting in your posts.

Popping up and calling everyone stupid is not that effective.

@Mrsbabbecho ,

No woe at all. And given the millions of tax I have paid to date, I don’t feel guilty at actually getting a tiny percentage of that back in services.

But we may well for 6th form and, if we do, we will happily pay the VAT. It hasn’t limited my options at all, thanks.

As I have repeatedly said, I am pretty agnostic on this tax. It remains to be seen whether it will be effective or not, and I am strongly in favour of a two year delay as, given the commitments people have made, it feels retrospective and rushed.

But it isn’t evil or outrageous, any more than higher rate income tax, or general VAT, it is just another tax levelled on the more wealthy. And, for the vast majority, will mean fewer holidays or keeping their cars a bit longer, rather than changing their plans for their children.

Yes, the plan was most likely a few delays over the course of the next year before it’s dropped and avoiding the embarrassment of the ECHR ruling. Personally I don’t think they should be let off so easily though, the ISC should still go ahead with their legal action and Phillipson and Reeves should lose their jobs.

They really do exhibit 6th form student union politics

There you go, isn’t it nice to have these diverse education options available for our children? Sounds like the policy wouldn’t limit your education options though (unless the schools close anyway), just other parents. Who cares right?

I know the last government is now irrelevant, but our entire country has been brought to its knees due to some Eton beef between Cameron and Johnson.

Our institutions have lost their respect and value because no one cared about the truth, just whether it won the point like some drunken Oxford Union debate.

I'd take earnest sixth form politics any day.

@Mrsbabbecho ,

‘There you go, isn’t it nice to have these diverse education options available for our children? Sounds like the policy wouldn’t limit your education options though (unless the schools close anyway), just other parents so who cares right?’

Surely you can see that this is a deeply flawed argument?

Money has always bought different options. The only way to stop that entirely is to abolish private schools and go for a full bussing policy in the state sector.

Most people who talk about limiting options on here have never protested when their fees rose at twice the rate of inflation meaning some pupils had to leave, but in return they got a climbing wall or a shiny new 6th form centre.

You either believe money should buy you choice, or you don’t. The protests here seem to be about money should buy you choice, but only as long as you personally can afford it.

“But it isn’t evil or outrageous, any more than higher rate income tax, or general VAT, it is just another tax levelled on the more wealthy. And, for the vast majority, will mean fewer holidays or keeping their cars a bit longer, rather than changing their plans for their children.”

@Newbutoldfather - it is evil in that it completely ignores the inherent rights of the children, the 600k children, in the schools. Like they are not “our children”.
Because according to Phillipson, the inference on her X post is that “our children” is just the 93% in state schools.

Children have their own enshrined human rights.

Even the Tories, when they got rid of Child Benefit for more than 2 kids, it was for those born after the given date. Not those already born.

The point is fundamentally that the State cannot interfere with the right of the child in this way. This is where they have massively miscalculated. The rights of the child increase the more vulnerable they are eg. SEND.

@Araminta1003 ,

I really don’t agree with that analysis but one thing that is for sure is that it will be legally tested to destruction, so we shall see.

But you will have to make the argument that, as long as you can afford, say, 21k per annum, you accrue this right, which is fair and equitable, but that it is unfair if you lose it if you cannot afford 25k per annum.

@remotecontrolowls - Reeves and Phlillipson are just as much part of the Oxford Union club as Boris Johnson and Cameron! They are all of the same ilk, the former just have you fooled to think they are different because they went to state school. However, real privilege comes at Oxford and they all act and think the same way!

Don’t know if anyone is reading the full thread on this because it’s so lengthy now…. but various parents of kids with SEND in private schools for smaller class sizes have already been posting on this thread.

What about us, the sizable minority now liable to pay 20% more? We were offered no state alternative available in a time frame to support our DC’s SEND? Legally enforcing the LA’s legal responsibilities takes time/years (and likely money in some cases- I know of a family who needed to ask a barrister which is a cost way out of reach of most families) and from speaking to other parents, LAs don’t have specialist SEND spaces free for all the kids who need them, available to start in a reasonable time frame. We are not starting from a basis of state funded support that the government is pretending we do.

Our kids have already experienced a total failure in MS education which is traumatic for them plus months/years out of school. Some of us are lucky to have the financial resources to have been able to pay privately to try a MS private school or alternative type schools (… including Steiner type schools or fee paying special schools aimed at kids with SEND. Not necessarily the glossy schools most people seem to think of when they want to carp about ‘private schools’ on here..)

Yet VAT is being equally applied to us for paying for somewhere our kids might be able to get an education. So new VAT taxation feels very unfair. In principle additionally taxing education for anyone feels wrong.

I would love to be able to send my child to take up her place at a state school that meets her needs at no additional cost. I used to have confidence that was possible. I know it’s not now, from experience. I would love not to have to ask my family remembers to financially contribute to my child’s education due to her SEND. All kids should absolutely be able to access a state education, but in reality this isn’t possible due to central and local government cuts and rising need for services.

Your ‘fewer holidays or keeping their cars a bit longer,’ comment is highly stereotyped and very wide of the mark in a lot of cases, looking from just looking around my DC’s classroom.

Fee raising was a school by school issue, largely to cover costs and not a deliberate act to limit education choices. The impact of inflation can be lumpy and hit schools hard.

Arguing fee increases have limited education options, so adding an extra 20% won’t make a difference would seem a deeply flawed argument.

Actually I think it is about the principle of VAT on education.

Whether you believe it is just depends on your opinion of education within the country.

I believe that all education from nursery to 6th form, state or private, steiner, montessori, Eton or music school are part of the breadth and diversity that we as a country can offer and should be proud of. I feel this should be celebrated. I also believe that education is a societal benefit and everyone benefits from our children being well educated. Hopefully children will grow up to use the skills that they have been taught to aid our society. Children are our future chefs, doctors, nurses, dentists, lorry drivers etc

VAT is not added on things that are societal good for example fruit and vegetables. Education is education. This policy is driving a wedge.

The right is negative, not positive.

You don't have a right to the education of your choice.

But you do have the right to non-interference. Ie the government not deliberately taking your education away.

It would have been acceptable for the government to impose a tax on education if the money raised was in proportion to the harm caused.

It's breaching children's rights for them to impose a tax for the purpose of removing the benefit a good education gives those children.

@Mrsbabbecho ,

‘Fee raising was a school by school issue, largely to cover costs and not a deliberate act to limit education choices. The impact of inflation can be lumpy and hit schools hard.’

This is just not true at all. Inflation in private school fees has been about twice the rate of inflation for four decades now. It has nothing to do with costs which are mostly teachers’ salaries which have actually been going down in real terms since the financial crash in 2008.

And this isn’t bursaries and scholarships either. Again the evidence is that they haven’t been increasing in either number or value, in fact going down in real terms.

Of course different schools have behaved differently but we are discussing the sector,

If you have actual evidence to the contrary, I would love to see it.