How's the Private School VAT increase impacting you?

[mumsthewordi]

To private fee paying ...are kids/s still in private ? Are you comfortably still able to afford and happy paying it ?

To state, how do you feel? Have you been impacted by more kids in class or would you expect that to play out this year? Or perhaps you weren't supportive ?
Do you think state schools will improve ?

Full disclosure
A struggling fee paying parent of one kid only other is at state and my oh is an amazing secondary school teacher - we are a divided household indeed at time, but we've made choices best for us.

Let’s hope this ‘mostly state-educated between 11-16’ (👀🫣) cabinet start to give state education a good name, shall we. They haven’t started well, have they.

https://labourlist.org/2024/11/news-cabinet-ministers-state-educated/?amp

Ha ha, I don’t think you can pin the blame on state schools for this lot.

Well the teaching unions are voting on strikes, there is a growing opposition to the Education Bill. BP did a propaganda piece on MN and there were zero comments in support of her policies.
They have just announced they are scrapping computer + language hubs and have already scrapped Latih Access Courses for state schools, mid-year with some kids due to sit exams in July.

Reeves is going to have to cut more public spending as a result of current state of economy and Education budget won't be safe from this. Anyone hoping that this version of Labour would improve education are due for a massive disappointment. This incarnation of Labour is not the Labour of Blair with his "Education, Education, Education" mantra.

It's upsetting when the only significant difference between the parties is the amount of money blown on their education.

I was referring to your "they did it first" excuse. Clearly neither is acceptable. I would have thought that would be pretty obvious.

You are just arguing for the sake of it now. Of course name calling is never right especially when you are talking about kids. But then this policy is harming kids and many on here don't care purely because of the type of school they go to so 🤷‍♀️

Open misopedia is quite a significant difference.

Most people are decent and would not want kids harmed.

Well if that is the case the policy should have had the necessary exemptions and been introduced at usual transition points. They didn’t do that because of the way VAT works and it would have been loss making do to VAT reclaims. So instead they decided to impose it in bad faith to somehow fit into the VAT scheme, artificially and harmfully. And then they are surprised that people don’t just let this slide and fall for some buzz words like “tax breaks” - it is best not to underestimate other people’s intelligence especially if your own is clearly not as good as your Oxford degree may otherwise suggest. I thought Reeves was a chess player- well her opening has been pitiful.

Shame Labour don't agree. If they cared about kids they would have exempted ALL SEN + those in Yrs 10-13 and phased this policy in over time.
Or just not have brought this policy in at all.
So don't give me the "most people are decent" because that certainly doesn't include Labour.
The mere fact that they are bringing increased duty on vapes in over 3 years but bring Education Tax in over 3 months tells me they don't mind harming kids at all. They view indy schools as being more damaging than vapes.

Realistically improving pay and conditions to make it more attractive to graduates is what’s needed and this was what the government stated it was aiming to do by taxing private education.

If enough funds were realistically going to be raised to actually achieve this then I would fully support the tax. Instead, the most the Labour Party seems to be proposing is a third of a teacher per school and breakfasts for every child, regardless of their need. What is their plan to actually transform state education? How is it going to be funded? How will provision for SEN students be improved? I will be paying thousands of pounds that I can’t easily afford because my elder child wasn’t offered a state education. I am not sure why it’s only private school parents who are being expected to fund the bare minimum of improvements.

But the Labour government has pointedly ensured all cabinet positions held by state educated members. They are in charge of education policy and funding - why can’t they reform state education? How are private schools getting in the way of them doing their jobs?

It has eased off, and this thread hasn't been too bad. But to challenge the 'both sides' narrative that comes from selective reading, I have pulled out all the 'name' comments on this thread.

• 3 separate mocking comments against private school kids.

• 1 response.

It's nowhere near even. The last one in particular is really spiteful

Liddlemoreaction · 09/01/2025 13:32

The beautiful thing about state schools is that money isn’t going to get you higher up the list, you can’t ring up a head and offer to bung them some cash so that little Hugo and Clemmie can be found a place in school that is at capacity.

Sasskitty · 09/01/2025 13:45

Hopefully Lula-May and Duane won’t have their school classrooms disturbed too much by little (but sure to be taller than average) Clem and Hugo.

Liddlemoreaction · 09/01/2025 14:08

Because if little Emmy couldn’t go to the absolute BEST state school then mummy and daddy were just going to have to ‘sacrifice’ even more for her future at prep.

Liddlemoreaction · 09/01/2025 16:37

As for Clemmies being short, no idea as I have only ever met the one. He might want to re-think that name when he’s older though ( unless he does go to work for mummy’s wealth mge firm of course) because it may actually go against him if he ever has to get a real world job.

Liddlemoreaction · 09/01/2025 16:37
As for Clemmies being short, no idea as I have only ever met the one. He might want to re-think that name when he’s older though ( unless he does go to work for mummy’s wealth mge firm of course) because it may actually go against him if he ever has to get a real world job

Blimey, that’s really spiteful - though presumably writing such a comment gives the poster pleasure.

100% this ^ (although my kids currently both at our local state school).

You might like to question why Labour have highlighted their cabinets’ education (‘mostly state-educated between 11-16’) on their website.

Do you really think that having state-educated cabinet is the main prerequisite to improving state school system?
I'd rather see there people with real-life experience in the field no matter what background they have instead of career politicians, but it's never the case in the UK no matter who's in charge.

So a single thread and two posters. From what I have read, there has been a huge number of threads with nasty comments flying from both sides.

Yes me too @Whymeee - like someone in charge of Health who has worked in the NHS for 20 plus years and someone in charge of Education who has been a teacher or head for many years. Nothing beats actual experience of the day to day issues especially when you have to make very quick decisions and react fast. Especially the role of Chancellor when that essentially impacts absolutely everyone’s lives it really has to come with the right experience over many years. It is all too complicated for an intern or someone who has handled customer complaints - it is not necessarily their intelligence that is lacking, but their experience is entirely inadequate. Surely any CEO of a large bank or financial management company or a regulator could do a better job of it.

I pulled comments out of this thread as an example, to show the disparity.

If you would like to select a different thread and pull out all the 'name' comments, I'd be happy to see that. I'm willing to bet you won't find one without a similar disparity in both number of comments and spitefullness.

You do have to pull out all the comments from the thread you select though, not just one or 2 . We've already seen that selective reading means that people don't notice comments in one direction, even though they believe themselves neutral.

Because that's the only thing they have in common with their base really and even this is only partially true as there's state and there's grammar.

I think you’re wasting your time with this. If someone who actively supports closing down your child’s school is pleading the victim then they’re beyond common reason.

45% of the Labour cabinet went to Oxbridge. Not very diverse is it. Not many people in the uk went to Oxbridge. Do students from other universities not have the same opportunities to get into politics?

You're right. Supporting closing down our schools is beyond OK. And that boundary was breached long ago.

I'm an optimist by nature, and think that some posters do genuinely believe they're neutral. (Not all). And they must eventually see how stupid this is.

But at a certain point, it's enough.

That's up to you, no one else is making you do it. It is still misleading or at least confusing to say having to earn £20k means you pay £13k income tax. We all pay tax regardless of what we choose to spend our money on. I can't get an NHS dentist for love nor money so despite not agreeing with private health care I have to pay privately as I've got raging toothache and still have to wait till Wednesday before a private dentist will see me, I don't say I have to pay 65% tax on what it costs me.