Impact of new cuts to state school funding

[Novotelchok]

There are a lot of headlines just now about further cuts to state school funding - through inadequate central government funding of pay rises & NI increases, and pupil premium not going up enough. I'm not in England so only know what's in the papers - I'd be very interested to hear how this is impacting schools/ children / families.

I'm not a journalist, just an interested parent & a voter who is pretty worried by what seems to be Austerity 2.0.

As the saying goes, somehow “the Government” always gets in!

They sold our youth out to US tech companies and Chinese vaping companies. They have let Amazon take over etc etc.

Right, so

• Tory cuts: bad, very bad. Bad bad Tories! (No argument from me there).
• Labour cuts: understandable, unavoidable, all the fault of the Bad Bad Tories! And Trump!

Ok, I’m being flippant, but there is no way we should be letting Labour off as your posts suggest, implicitly at least.

I expected Labour to raise taxes in order to even try to restore public services. Isn’t that what they’re meant to do, what they’re known for?

People say, “ah, but that’s not a vote winner” (though it’s not stopped them being elected multiple times before). But with the car crash the Tories made of things Labour were shooting at an open goal by the time the election was called!

They should have been honest and said “If you want education, social care and other public services to survive, to be even vaguely functional, there is no choice, we all have to pay more on taxes.”

But seemingly Labour are too spineless, or just too hungry for power to do this, and no: that is not the fault of the Bad Bad Tories, but of the catastrophically disappointing Labour Party themselves.

I’m a higher rate taxpayer so believe me I don’t want to pay any more taxes than I do, but I could respect such an approach as being unwelcome but necessary. I expected that I would be worse off under Labour, not that everyone would be significantly worse off, and that Labour would be making no attempts to make it better!

I thought the outgoing Chancellor (jeremy Hunt) made an interesting comment in his leaving interviews. Basically saying Starmer was a good man and the labour party could tackle hard decisions around cuts (I think it was pensions but it might have been welfare and spending in general) in a way the tories just couldn't get away with. That is a paraphrase of the sentiment, not a quote.

Don’t get me wrong @ICouldBeVioletSky , I am extremely unhappy about further cuts to the education budget, and as the proposals suggest there is nothing palatable left to cut after 14 years of destructive underfunding.

But the posters claiming that it’s somehow because Labour are fiscally irresponsible while hyping up changes of tenths of a percent that barely register on the long term scale are simply trying to get the Tories off the hook there. And I’m not having that after the devastation they wrought. The economy Labour inherited was shit (the best the pp could describe it as was ‘germinating economic growth’), the public services were in a terrible state and there were billions in unfunded spending commitments waiting to be sorted. That is on the Tories.

I also think some posters are not recognising the seriousness of the situation with Trump destroying NATO while the world moves to a war footing. It’s incredibly worrying times.

I agree that Labour unnecessarily hamstrung themselves by ruling out tax rises, given the scale of their election win it’s possible they could have been bolder. But given the shallowness of the win, perhaps they calculated not.

I expected Labour to raise taxes in order to even try to restore public services. Isn’t that what they’re meant to do, what they’re known for?

I’m assuming that’s what the VAT on private school fees policy was for.

Very much this. They painted themselves into a corner by promising not to touch VAT or income tax, the two largest levers for revenue generation.

their whole election strategy was to offer as few new ideas as possible so they could keep the public focused on anti-Tory sentiment. Unfortunately that strategy has followed them into governing, meaning no coherent strategy (effectively hitting gas and breaks at the same time with their economic policies) and no big ideas (let alone a consensus behind them) for how to tackle the big issues looming.

@noblegiraffe To your last point on vat for private schools - that was always just window dressing. Even their most optimistic estimates didn’t suggest it would generate enough income to move the needle on education. The fact they were unwilling to do a proper impact assessment, nor are they willing to track any of the easily available data that might clarify net impact, suggests this was always ideology not revenue generation

I would say Starmer has other faults rather than this glowing rendition but yes Labour can and will push through cuts in a way they couldn’t.

Look at the leeway on here already.

But they also said that they would be a growth based government. That they would focus their decisions on stimulating the economy so they could then spend more on services.
For many, their policies have been anti growth. Policies such as, NI hikes, day 1 employment rights, farm and family business tax. The economy is in decline and much of these decision haven’t been set out in any manifesto. I don’t think they came into a great situation but I do think they have made it considerably worse in record quick time.

I think a lot of people are forgetting the state of the economy which the Conservatives inherited in 2010. Yes, we’d just had a global crash which many are keen to point out, but we seem to be forgetting that we’ve also recently had a global pandemic, and then global high inflation.

Labour promised things would be better. They promised more investment in education, and suggested to voters that this was as simple as whacking tax on private schools to divert funding to the state sector. No one with any inkling of economic understanding could possibly think this was going to work.

Many people were extremely keen to vote Labour when they thought that fiscal measures would only affect others. It turns out they’re not so keen now they’re realising they’re also having to shoulder some of the burden.

The issue for Reeves and Starmer is they wiped out £9bn headroom. That led to an attempt at £5bn welfare cuts, which the OBR have stated won’t be enough so more cuts needed.

The whole growth thing was meant to be how they’d get things going but they’ve halved it in record time due to poor policies, as you say.

100%. Many who voted labour were ‘hoodwinked’. It’s a bloody disgrace really.

I think we should be honest here. State school funding cuts do not affect middle class children in the same way, as children from poorer backgrounds and children with SEND (whatever the background).
As a MC parent in the state sector, I have been plugging academic and extracurricular for years. As do all my friends, where the need arises. We do our bit for schools, as much as we possibly can, as well. It does not even really affect our children’s attainment either, because where necessary, the parents will get a GCSE tutor or sign up to some websites etc. We are perfectly capable to read the curriculum as well and get our head around multimark GCSE questions.

Labour absolutely know this, they and their friends will be doing the same. So they know that attainment for certain segments of the state sector are not going to be lowered, in fact, more kids going state now instead of private will artificially look like a rise in attainment. That is why they are doing all of this. They are saving money - but sacrificing poor kids and kids with SEND. The truth is that raising those kids up, is incredibly expensive and they are simply not willing to spend there. Yet they are happy to spend on the elderly and the NHS. It does not make sense and we should all resist it. It is not a good long term economic investment to approach society like that. You cannot go on and on about Green technologies (and deluded ones at that e.g carbon capture) yet not invest in the next generation. It is inconsistent.
If workers are the priority, then prioritise them on the NHS as well.

I agree. Just imagine the uproar if a Conservative government had cut winter fuel allowance (Labour were up in arms when the Conservatives suggested a similar measure), or hiked NIC, or slashed education funding even more, or cut benefits. This is the just the start. The NIC and minimum wage changes are going to have a huge effect. Prices will have to increase even more, and business will be harmed. A more sensible option would have been to increase basic rate income tax by 1% and VAT by 1% which would have raised around £15bn a year. It would have meant that the burden was shared around more people. In order to win votes though, they promised not to do this. Goodness knows where Labour thought that the additional funding and investment was going to come from.

www.gov.uk/government/statistics/direct-effects-of-illustrative-tax-changes/direct-effects-of-illustrative-tax-changes-bulletin-january-2025#vat

Also, for those of you with children with SEND in the private sector, they know you are trapped there and will pay the VAT and will go into debt/payment plans/remortgage your house etc - it is all very cruel.

I think you are right.

I don't know anyone who isn't using tutors in Y11 for one subject or more bar a couple of people with children in the private sector.

It's not even a secret anymore - people openly ask for recommendations and discuss with teachers how to make best use of the tutor's time.

The current Y11 spent half of Y6, whole of Y7 and half of Y8 under lockdown. They were nobody's priority - yet the National Tutoring Programme isn't there for them now, they are lacking foundations in many subjects, and GCSEs are all "back to normal" yet they've had a very different and frankly lesser education from those sitting them in 2019. Current Y10 not much better off either.

Perfect storm of disrupted educations, no concessions, GCSEs that are too content-heavy and tick-box answers only, teacher shortages and now government stressing the sector.

I can tell you why I would be tempted - because it looks like under both parties I will have to pay a lot of money for tutoring to make up for school funding being inadequate (this applies to other public services - I have no hopes of ever finding a NHS dentist, even when pregnant and I do pay for private healthcare).

However, the difference between Tory & Labour is that at least Tories won't raise my taxes.

Just imagine the uproar if a Conservative government had cut winter fuel allowance

Are you suggesting that there wasn’t an uproar when Labour cut the winter fuel allowance?

Exactly
It amazing isn’t it? When the conservatives come in off the back of spectacular Labour incompetence plus a global financial crisis and start cutting spending, it’s Tory defunding and evil, unnecessary austerity. But when Labour come in to power and do the EXACT same bloody thing, it’s still the Conservative’s fault because their supporters are so bloody blinkered. Economies across the world are in the shit - we had a global pandemic & two wars.

We are literally one step behind America and the next step is that the right wing will march into power because centre left and centre right are too busy finger pointing and refusing to acknowledge that both Labour and Conservative have made some colossal mistakes but also both have been operationing in extremely challenging times - financial crisis, covid, invasion of Ukraine, Oct 7th atrocity and israel invasion of Gaza and now an insane American govt.

(The Tories absolutely did raise taxes by freezing the tax thresholds during a period of high inflation).

But we have people complaining that Labour will raise taxes and people complaining that they haven’t raised taxes. Can’t win either way.

I assume PP meant “Just imagine the uproar from Labour if a Conservative government had cut WFA.”

No there wasn’t uproar. Labour and their supporters, who when the idea was previously floated by the Conservatives, demonized the Conservative govt as the killers of the elder and produced a report stating that around 5,000 elderly would die as a result, suddenly reversed ferret in an act of cognitive dissonance of incredible proportions. Suddenly it was fine to means test (having previously stated over and over again that means testing costs more to deliver than universal) and suddenly the media (& MN) was flooded with stories of pensioners as greedy resource hogging parasites. MN was flooded with stories of parents living in mansions and worth millions spending the WFA on their latest cruise. So no - there was no uproar - just a complete volte-face but an insistence that what they were now doing or saying was not completely different and incompatible with what they said before despite the fact that any reasonable person could see this fact as plain as day.

Exactly what is now happening in America where senators who passionately defended Ukraine spending or USAID are now passionately arguing the exact opposite but no one will call
them out it because their supporters are too busy pointing at each rather than holding the govt to account. Partisan politics at the extreme which is where we are heading here.

Labour posters have been pro cuts or muted and I’m pretty sure Reeves is happy they are batting for them despite more cuts.

suddenly the media (& MN) was flooded with stories of pensioners as greedy resource hogging parasites. MN was flooded with stories of parents living in mansions and worth millions spending the WFA on their latest cruise

Literally think you must have been living in different world to me at that point, particularly regarding the media. You think the press who are largely right wing gave Labour a free pass on freezing pensioners??

I've no idea - some will be due to passive income or having a high earning partner. The whole point of means testing is that you still get the benefit if you are on a low income anyway so I'm not sure what your point is.

Yes, you clearly have no idea.