Will parents move to areas closer to Outstanding/Good schools rather than pay VAT

[LadyConfused2024]

Sorry for the long message. This really? Do you think many parents will sell up/rent near a better school and take their kids out of private school rather than pay the VAT fee increase?

These are purely selfish reasons as I want to move and think that house prices are going to go up a lot in areas with good state schools.

Thanks in advamce.

Great. Enjoy a better quality of life. Retire. If you’re as engaged with your children’s education as you claim you’ll be an asset to a state school.

We haven’t taken our kids out of private primary but we have moved to a catchment of an outstanding secondary state school to keep our options open. Whilst we’d be able to afford private secondary we reason we can use our wealth to benefit our children’s education in a different way vs paying out for fees. Not sure who is the loser in this but it’s certainty not us.

I don’t see how 20% education tax added onto the fees would make it easier for you afford PS for your DC. Surely it makes it more difficult for people in this situation?

Did you protest about the multiple libraries and Surestarts being shut by local councils because of radical cuts to spending by the Conservative government which on paper saved very little money. Our library was over 120 years old, only open a few days a week but a boon to young parents and pensioners. Shut to save money in 2013. Repeated in countless areas. Where were the protests and petitions then ?

@MyNameIsErinQuin

If students went to the school forecast 3/4 in maths and English, leaving with 4/5 would be a great results, better that intakes forecast 9 and coming out with 9. Progress 8 measures just that, how well students as a cohort do relative to sats results. Not all students will get 7/8/9 despite how well they are taught. Some will no matter how good teaching!

The Progress 8 figure is dire as well. Well into negative territory.

Yes this happens a lot. Even renting for 6 months in catchment areas.

I have no doubt they will be an asset to the school and we don't consider ourselves losers to this policy. We still have the luxury of choice to move abroad thanks to our careers or could move back to the private sector (whilst increasing working hours) in the future should state not work for any reason. But it begs the question, if private school parents who move to state are not the losers, and those who remain in private are not the losers, who are..... which takes us back to the title of the thread

You have still failed to address your entirely false assertation that 'private schools avoid paying their way like everyone else'. As I stated, private schools (and their parents) were paying more than their share to start with.

They’re clawing money back where they can. Something has to give. Everything else has already been cut to the bone. Local council playgroup closed and public swimming pool on reduced hours etc all been done already. Maybe the electorate should have thought more carefully about voting for eternal austerity repeatedly.

@maxplanck

Most cannot afford private school. If I scrimped and saved for years I still wouldn’t be able to afford the fees despite already driving an old banger and not going abroad for years. My oldest is dyslexic and would have benefited from private education but like most kids with a LD state school was the only option.
If Starmer sent his kids to private school you’d still moan whatever he did, call him a hypocrite etc.

There are plenty of families at state school who could afford private school. There are plenty of people in state school who go on multiple holidays, have flash cars etc. That's absolutely fine. Other families' choice of school doesn't concern me. What I don't agree with though is using taxpayer money to fund breakfast for those families. No one can possibly argue that the taxpayer funding breakfast for millionaires is a good use of taxpayer money. The point is that the tax could be targeted to those who really need it. It isn't though.

No I didn’t protest about your library 🙄and I was not aware Labour are claiming the education tax will be used to fund libraries, that’s quite a long list of activities it’s going to fund now.

It has always happened but it will happen to a greater degree now, and the VAT change is the impetus for that.

There is no problem with children from different walks of life mixing - except where the wealthier children colonise the better schools to the detriment of working class children.

The idea that this policy will reduce inequality and redirect wealth to support less privileged children is fundamentally flawed.

I live in a grammar area and it’s common for parents to hot house their children in prep schools for the 11+ and it’s extremely unusual for a prep school pupil not to pass. This situation will be exacerbated now with more parents pursuing state education.

@FixItFi

No I didn’t protest about your library 🙄and I was not aware Labour are claiming the education tax will be used to fund libraries, that’s quite a long list of activities it’s going to fund now.

They're not. They're using it to give the kids a few breakfast muffins and to give every school a third of a teacher....... Hardly transformational for the state sector.

“Great. Enjoy a better quality of life. Retire. If you’re as engaged with your children’s education as you claim you’ll be an asset to a state school.“

@maxplanck - that is economic nonsense. The poster was more efficient to society as a whole by paying more tax previously and the private school giving that bit of extra attention for their children, to make up the full time work by those 2 parents.
This policy is economically illiterate. It is a deterrent to some people paying their own way through society and will reward less efficiency. Public services are not free, they are simply free at the point of delivery. It seems like the great British public does not understand the difference between the two!

It is also a typical colonialist thinking policy, in any event. A lot of the people using independent schools these days are first and second generation hardworking successful immigrants. How dare they try and pay for education and better their children? That is where much of the hard left thinking is coming from. It is also anti EU as it breaches fundamental principles of EU VAT laws. It is regressive and divisive and ableist towards children with SEND. It certainly won’t be some sort of win for Britain, that much is guaranteed.

When the infrastructure of a country is dismantled in the name of some failed economic ideology and then needs rebuilding, when money has been siphoned off to chums during the pandemic, billions lost due to a ridiculous idea like Brexit, you do realise all of us have to pay for it at some point, even people like you.There are consequences.

Maybe the electorate should have thought more carefully about voting for eternal austerity repeatedly.

Yeah, this’ll teach em.

As of Sept 2026, DC will be in a state school at a cost of £8k to the public sector. I will be working less hours and drop down to 40% tax bracket, paying thousands less. DH will be diverting more of his income into his pension as we do not need to pay school fees.

But your employer will presumably replace those lost hours and pay someone else to work them so you dropping your hours is not a financial loss to the nation. Likewise, the reason pensions are set up as tax efficient is to encourage people to put money into them, that's also fine.

All sounds like a reasonable plan by the way, not knocking it and I hope it all goes well for you, but I do find it weird when people talk about earning less as if that should be a worry to anyone else.

@maxplanck

It would appear that the current government don't think that austerity went far enough, as they are planning to cut spending even further.

www.theguardian.com/business/2025/jan/09/rachel-reeves-cuts-public-services-borrowing-costs-tax

“When the infrastructure of a country is dismantled in the name of some failed economic ideology and then needs rebuilding, when money has been siphoned off to chums during the pandemic, billions lost due to a ridiculous idea like Brexit, you do realise all of us have to pay for it at some point, even people like you.There are consequences.”

Sounds like you are quite happy to continue with the destruction, rather than get back closer to the EU. If you champion a policy in direct contravention of EU principles. Rebuilding takes money which means capital inflows, not outflows. It means encouraging people to pay their own way via taxation, and certainly not the opposite.

Perhaps after all the colonial plundering and arrogance of the British over many centuries, the fact they will become a colony to the US and China is some sort of divine justice, in any event. Let their living standards erode and let them destroy their own successful institutions. It appears they are becoming better and better at it, by the day.

Those kind of decisions cost the taxpayer money though. Whilst it might be good for an individual family, the taxpayer is losing out to the tune of thousands of pounds a year. Multiply that out by lots of families and it soon starts to impact the tax take.

Why ? What could have caused that ? 🤔

even people like you

Can’t I just be a net state cost and write on the internet how other people should pay more tax instead?

Stalling of growth due to post GE policies and higher borrowing costs due to current lack of market confidence

Decreasing the private sector will always impact the public sector after a few months

@maxplanck you said

"Maybe the electorate should have thought more carefully about voting for eternal austerity repeatedly."

This implies that you think that the problems are caused by austerity. The Labour Party are planning to solve the problems by imposing even more austerity.

We live in a nice house with good schools. I'd rather spend my money on something I'm getting something out of too (nice house, nice area) than live in a cheaper place and send dc private.

However, these good state schools are massive. I have no complaints about the junior school but DD has been blown away by some of the behaviour she's seen in the secondary school. So I do wonder how much of a shock to the system it would be for people in lovely prep schools. Even good state schools will have a dodgy patch in their catchment.