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!

@strawberrybubblegum ,

‘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.’

Well clearly the government will argue that this isn’t the purpose of the tax and people leave private schools all the time due to fee increases or changes in personal circumstances.

I think this idea is a massive stretch, as do most people. But law firms are itching to test it out in court, so we shall see. I suspect that the odds of the case succeeding are minuscule.

Barristers are not essential for appeals to SENDIST. No-one needs to decide not to appeal because they can’t afford a barrister and think one is required.

For CSA pupils unable to attend school, there’s also the option of enforcing s19 provision. Enforcement isn’t immediate, but it is nowhere near as long as appeals to SENDIST and doesn’t take years. It can be done for free too. SOSSEN offers free pre-action letters for failure to provide s19 provision and if the pre-action letter doesn’t work, the case is brought in the child’s name so they can be eligible for legal aid in their own right.

As I said, fee raises are a school by school issue and inflation is lumpy. My children all go to the same prep school and the increases have been due to costs. I have no experience at other private schools,

I can’t work out if you’re arguing fee increases have no impact on education choice or that they have a large impact in limiting choice.

@EHCPerhaps ,

‘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.’

Except, again, my remarks are true of the sector, actual hard data is available. You can see what percentage of the median private school parents’ wealth or income goes on schooling, and it isn’t that high.

Of course, some schools and students are very different, but at the median, what I am stating is correct.

@Mrsbabbecho ,

‘As I said, fee raises are a school by school issue and inflation is lumpy. My children all go to the same prep school and the increases have been due to costs. I have no experience at other private schools,’

Inflation is lumpy is meaningless! Of course it is. Why does that mean fee increases have to ALWAYS be above inflation (well maybe not in the 10% inflation year, but still substantially above teacher pay increase).

I can’t comment on your children’s prep school, obviously.

‘I can’t work out if you’re arguing fee increases have no impact on education choice or that they have a large impact in limiting choice.’

Overall demand for the private sector has been remarkably price inelastic but that doesn’t mean that it is the same demographic accessing it. People like ordinary solicitors, teachers, normal doctors with two or more children etc have been priced out of the market and replaced with wealthy foreigners, lots of bankers, London lawyers in big firms etc and, of course, people relying on accrued housing wealth. Again, this isn’t controversial, it is well documented,

….and from that you conclude that putting up fees by 20% wouldn’t limit education choices?

People keep saying the number of children in private schools hasn't changed - but the overall number of children of school age in the UK has increased. The percentage of children in private education has been falling in recent years.

What @Newbutoldfather is arguing is that you can't say that increased cost is limiting education choices when that is the very point of private school. Private schools have voluntarily put up prices above inflation and limiting education choices themselves, which you are perfectly happy with.

If is a supply and demand thing but, as @Newbutoldfather says, the private school community has chosen to price out many middle class professionals as they chase after the very wealthy who they know will pay.

That's why Blair didn't implement it in the 90s, because the intake was far more broad and included far more ordinary families.

@EndlessLight I have huge respect for you and your knowledge of this byzantine system (and your kindness to confused posters), but time and cultural capital never seem to feature in your suggestions that parents use every legal remedy and support service available to enforce their rights.

Most parents give up long before that stage. They simply don't have the time, energy, knowledge and confidence to force it through. You're right, it's free to do it but time is money too.

Parents simply shouldn't have to do all that in order for their DC to access the state education they're entitled to that other DC are getting with minimal effort. It's wrong. Meanwhile the children are getting damaged or at the very least not educated. The mothers (almost always the mothers) struggle to work.

Imagine if the NHS put barriers that high in front of accessing taxpayer funded healthcare for children! It'd be a scandal and rightly so.

@Phineyj well then you haven’t read any of my posts saying parents should be supported to apply/appeal/enforce DC’s rights. Not the ones who say the system fails the most vulnerable. I didn’t mention those my pp because that wasn’t the point I was replying to.

Imagine if the NHS put barriers that high in front of accessing taxpayer funded healthcare for children!

They do! See the numerous autistic DC who are refused CAMHS support because ‘anxiety is part of ASD’. Or the years certain populations fought for drugs the NHS refused to fund because of the cost and QALY. Or the ones who are refused continence products or limited in the number of products. I could go on! None of which are acceptable, of course.

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

VAT is not charged on things which are good for the welfare of society. There is also a separate intention to reduce the regressive nature of the tax by excluding things that lower income people spend the largest proportion of their income on (food and children's clothes for example).

But VAT is incredibly complicated. Not all food is zero rated.

Essential food is zero rated. Luxury food is subject to VAT. Biscuits zero rated. Chocolate biscuits have VAT. There is a very complicated definition of a flapjack.

Takeaway food zero rated. Restaurant meals taxed.

Education is not education just as food is not food.

So if indeed you are arguing that VAT has an ideological argument and is about 'societal good' then there are plenty of people who would argue that private education is not good for society (even if it is good for individual children) and therefore shouldn't be zero rated.

And given the millions of tax I have paid to date.

@Newbutoldfather am I right in saying you’re a teacher? If not then apologies, I’ve mixed you up with another poster.
However, I thought teachers were notoriously underpaid? If you’ve paid ‘millions’ in tax then you must have a substantial income - evidently the school you work at doesn’t stint on its teachers’ wages. (Unless it’s unearned income).

Yes.

And maybe, this whole VAT policy is simply a ruse to get enough people actually talking about this and championing it enough to make tackling it politically popular.

So when your council tax goes up to give SEND and LA much more funding, you will be fully in favour.

@Barbadossunset ,

Second career teacher, now just retired. It was a (kind of) hobby in terms of the difference it made to my wealth, but a hobby I worked far harder at (and enjoyed more) than my ‘big’ career in banking, which left me pretty depressed and cynical about the sector, but luckily with savings!

@Barbadossunset people have more than one career in their lives and it is more than possible to move from a high paying job into teaching. Or for teachers to move into high paying jobs.

Newbutoldfather thank you for answering my question.

I have read loads of your posts @endlesslight and I entirely understand what you are saying.

However, my view is that most people don't have the energy to fight like that and nor should they be required to. Not for something they're entitled to.

@Phineyj @EHCPerhaps and everyone else in our situation.

Solidarity.

I think we can all agree on that

You can’t have read that many of my posted if you post “time and cultural capital never seem to feature” It is, of course, fine if you haven’t read those posts where I have done exactly that (and post the system shouldn’t be like it is). After all, no-one is forced to read all posts and no-one can be expected to see all posts either, but it is not accurate to say I never acknowledge the multifaceted reasons why parents choose not to apply/appeal/enforce DC’s rights.

This isn't a tax on "a few of the wealthy". This is a tax on people who are mostly not wealthy. Its explicit purpose is to deter the poorest among them in the future from using a service that is deemed to be ideologically unsound by their "democratically elected government".

Since you seem to think that this is a worthwhile endeavour - and bearing in mind the disruption to the education of countless children in both education sectors in the short and medium terms - I would like to know how you think it will achieve its stated aim of "educational equality". Because, no one else seems to have a clue.

edit: endeavor to UK sp.

@Marchesman ,

please read through my posts before assuming my views.

‘This is a tax on people who are mostly not wealthy’

By most people standards, the vast majority are wealthy.

https://francisgreenspersonalwebpage.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/henseke_et_al_ed_econ_2021.pdf

Please see the chart in the above research paper about the income distribution in private schools. In one sentence:

’households in top decile are 10x as likely to access private schooling than pupils in the fourth decile’

The chart is very powerful if you actually read the paper.

‘What ** is arguing is that you can't say that increased cost is limiting education choices when that is the very point of private school.’

I can’t even begin to imagine how you’ve arrived at the conclusion that the very point of private school is to limit education choices, I’ll be ready for the logic bending explanation. I also think it’s entirely logical to point out that if fee increases have priced families out (which I think we agree on) then a 20% increase will price out even more families. I also see a difference between fees increasing because of costs and fees increasing as the result of a targeted punitive tax raid.

Blair didn’t implement in the 90’s because the legal advice pointed out that it contravened the ECHR and would likely be illegal under EU law.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/blair-forced-to-correct-blunkett-s-vat-gaffe-1566332.html

Where is it well documented?

The house price premium attached to an Ofsted rated "outstanding" state school would pay for the entire secondary education of a child in a typical private day school.

I have read your posts carefully, I have also read Francis Green's opinion pieces very carefully. You think for example that if people stop paying for private education they will spend their money on expensive cars and foreign holidays. There is no evidence for this, it is however evidence of a personal bias, as are your citations.

The fact that "households in top decile are 10x as likely to access private schooling than pupils in the fourth decile" does not mean that most pupils in private schools are from wealthy families, not least because there are one or two other deciles to take into consideration. It is however, a pretty good way of giving that impression.

Not wealth but SES:

"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. J. R. Statist. Soc. A (2013) 176, Part 2, pp. 431–457