Whitehall “braced for private schools collapse” 4

[ICouldBeVioletSky]

Continuing the discussion about the impact of VAT on independent schools…

Is anybody at the High Court today? The hearing is being held in public at 2pm.

Hoping someone will be able to tell us soon.
While searching the web I did come across the link below - The education secretary, Bridget Philipson, quoting the National Audit Office report and accepting that the the SEN system is broken. eg.
"The NAO’s report confirmed what constituents told me when out on the doorstep and at my regular community meetings: there had been no consistent improvement in outcomes for children with SEND, families have lost confidence in the system and there is a need for whole-system reform."
Why, given that they accept that the NAO report is accurate and entirely consistent with what their constituents are telling them, are they trying to have that same report ruled inadmissible in court? This is next-level hypocrisy.

https://www.bridgetphillipson.com/sunderland-echo-column/2024/10/31/bridget-phillipson-mp-labour-will-build-a-system-where-every-child-is-able-to-achieve-and-thrive/

Agree. And why is Hoyle involved in this?

Because he is a Labour stooge? There has been a perception that Hoyle previously compromised the impartiality of his office and interfered to support Labour when he shouldn't have (sound familiar?). This resulted in a motion of no confidence in Hoyle in 2024 signed by 95 MPs.

https://edm.parliament.uk/early-day-motion/61908/no-confidence-in-the-speaker

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/02/22/rishi-sunak-lee-anderson-lindsay-hoyle-gaza-vote-labour/

Despite ongoing concerns about his lavish spending, entitlement and poor judgment, many individual MPs are currently afraid to speak out publicly against him:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14500975/MP-criticise-Sir-Lindsay-Hoyle-Mails-revelations.html

The whole thing stinks to high heaven.

He’s so horrible. There are no words to describe him. You know the saying power corrupts. Why is the Speaker so often afflicted with megalomania? Bercow was just the same. Betty Boothroyd seems like a long time ago.

There's some detail on today's court hearing in this article:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/04/14/speaker-tries-to-block-evidence-private-school-parents-vat/

The NAO report has been in the public domain for many many months. It is not like it is still just before Parliament. Whilst it was not created specifically for the VAT case, it is unconscionable to ask claimants with SEND kids to have to pay for a report to that level themselves, particularly on day 2 o3 3 of a claim. Presumably it would have been disclosed during the disclosure process what they were going to rely on. Too late to have it not admitted, in my opinion.

What is further unconscionable, is that the Labour Party actually had the full NAO report since October 2024 and still went ahead with implementing VAT on private schools, knowing full well the extent of harm to children with SEND, precisely because they had an actual report. So it is very embarrassing for them. The report itself proves their knowledge of the issues with the SEND system. It is pretty bad all around, in my opinion. Governments need to account for the effect of their policies on the most vulnerable, it is why we have the human rights act as another layer of protection.

Also the Speaker is meant to be entirely impartial? How does this report being used as evidence affect Parliament as a whole? Rather than just the risk of Labour possibly losing on human rights grounds for a manifesto policy?

Has the Speaker really potentially compromised the need for impartiality just for this?

Certainly intriguing that in October BP was so keen to highlight the contents of the report and commit to transforming SEN education provision…. and now just six months later they’re trying to completely bury it. Could it possibly be because they never had a plan to improve SEN provision?

Selfishly I’m relieved that my disabled child is right at the end of his education now. Less selfishly, I’m bloody terrified for him as welfare provision is further cut.

Wtf is going on with this. Did Starmer lean on Hoyle along with Phillipson to squash it. He really needs this ridiculous policy to go through that much.

Where’s the non partisan speaker? It’s incredible this isn’t being scrutinised.

Or Reeves and Rayner leaning on Hoyle, with the timing of Hoyle's objection (not mentioned until the 3rd day of the court case) deliberately calculated to disrupt/undermine the parents' case as much as possible.

Philipson seems only to be told what Reeves and the treasury are planning a week or so beforehand - she's a useful patsy for them, but not in on it.

It's increasingly clear that Starmer doesn't have any principles except the principle that he should be in charge and his government should not suffer an embarrassing defeat in court. I don't think he's stupid or ideologically blind enough to really support this policy, but he's prepared to let the zealots on the left of the party have their fun with it if it stops them getting rowdy in other areas.

Yes you’re probably right about Phillipson as patsy.

I can’t believe the speaker of all people has acted in this way. Starmer I agree has no principles and is politically craven but for some reason this damaging VAT policy represents Labour and they don’t want to lose it. Utter madness.

I believe from what I have read that the judges were unhappy with the NAO report being excluded completely by the government at this stage in the case. The lawyers now have time to decide what is fact in the NAO report and what is judgement/drawn conclusions. I believe what is established as fact in the NAO report will still be used in court.

It actually raises concerns about Starmer as a Barrister to me - how does he run his cases if he deliberately omits key evidence and hoping no one will notice? Now he has pushed this case as high as it can go and has been found out - he got cocky. The legal side of him being in power surely shouldn't be so opaque considering his apparently social justice leaning background.

Agree completely with your second two paras.

As to the timing of the challenge re this report, as the saying goes “Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence.” It will have pissed the judges off that this point was made so late in the day and you really don’t want to piss the judges off.

If they’d thought of it any earlier they could have raised it eg a day or two before the hearing started, which would still have made it very hard for the applicants to find any alternative evidence.

This has probably already been mentioned but my BIL is an insurer and insures around 15% of all independent schools in the UK.

He said that aside from the top ~50 schools (and their derivatives/partners) that the rest are basically stuffed.

The top 50 get a great deal of international cash (Chinese, ME and the rest) plus they've now got a good return on past VAT receipts so they're secure. It's the remaining ~1000 that have little hope of survival over the next 5+ years.

There's an independent near me that had to join the GDST last year as they had basically gone bust despite a good reputation and plenty of students. It seems a great shame that the government has essentially decided that ~1000 schools will die.

It's an odd case to effectively try to "prove" state schools offer the same education as private and independents. Especially trying to argue it to a lot of people who likely chose to pay a lot of money to send kids to one and parents who have already tried state options and decided they were harming their children. Every week reports are coming out about misogyny (the show Adolescence highlighted state schools' ineptitude) and the exam results speak for themselves. Taking away even the choice of good and single sex schools to fund the bad makes no sense.

The Government will also be dragging the case out as they have unlimited funds but the claimants don’t.
Of course many private schools will go bust, it’s probably why Labour feel so strongly about doing this.

For those who could not read the Telegraph link (I could not due to the pay wall) it does seem also to be summarised here https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14603261/sir-lindsay-hoyle-outrageous-legal-school-report-VAT.html

@TRexHamsterTwo quick points. You surely aren’t saying that misogyny is a uniquely state school issue? And the exam results thing is a red herring because you aren’t comparing like with like.

Thanks, or you can access most paywalled articles by using a site like archive.ph or 12 foot ladder. Here’s the Telegraph one:

archive.ph/igmAJ

First point - of course it isn't only a state school issue, but it is clearly more of an issue in these schools who have no funding to keep teachers or deal with the behaviours that force other kids to leave.

Exams show education. If some schools do well and parents can afford to pay, why should that choice be taken away because the government isn't making their money work in the same way private schools do?

Really?
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/03/17/20000-a-year-private-school-accused-hotbed-sexual-violence/

archive.ph/igmAJ

Yes, it is a society wide issue - this school is acknowledging it happens, we know it happens frequently in state schools too with 1 in 3 girls being victim at school. Taking away single sex options and schools that have time and resources to look into the issues doesn't help state schools.

This doesn’t disprove PP’s point, though.

No-one would deny that misogyny and sexual assaults happen in private schools. This makes a great headline because of the fees and “prestige” of the school. It may be (not saying that it is the case) that it is much more prevalent in state schools but is not as headline grabbing.