Whitehall “braced for private schools collapse” 5

[ICouldBeVioletSky]

Starting a continuation thread in anticipation of the fourth one filling up…

www.mumsnet.com/talk/education/5301690-whitehall-braced-for-private-schools-collapse-4?page=39

Excellent post to illustrate strawberrybubblegum

The points are well made about the social contract being broken by a government and the disconnect that this gives mothers when they see their children being disadvantaged is widely true. True for inequalities of many kinds that successive governments are inactive or actively discriminative about and this one is really excelling in discriminating about.

Inequality is one of the reasons I voted Labour at the last general election because I assumed they would be working to narrow inequality. For example because Blair’s Labour introduced the first reduction targets around child poverty in the 1990s and then they actually reduced it etc. I thought Labour would have a plan to fund the NHS and education properly and in general for the public services that people rely on to keep well and keep working and contributing in other ways to society.

We desperately need to shore up the social contract and build a more healthy and socially active and inclusive society after Brexit and Covid and the general economic polarisation of society and political instability that seems to be happening globally.

So I am really disappointed in how Labour is doing so far specifically in response to disabled children and adults.

So on that point (and I don’t know much about working in medicine, so sorry for errors strawberrybubblegum) I was thinking that we could also add to your scenario. We could further extend it to cover that some of the doctors in this scenario have been previously excluded from taking other similar professional jobs by virtue of their diagnosed disability.

Since there is still a legal requirement for them to join a profession, then doctoring it must now be for these disabled candidates, because only that profession accepts them.

These disabled young doctors are more suited and they can do the medical job, better than the other jobs they tried to do in the other professions.

This is all noted down on paper by experts. The hospital working environment accessed with paid for family support (for those candidates who have that support) is widely seen by the professionals as the solution in an imperfect but unchanging system. Those disabled candidates without family support are left to struggle on in unsuitable professions, which is a scandal that the government is deflecting from while heralding fake news about the benefits of the 10% policy.

The additional 10% pay cut ruling on top of what financial help families were already putting in to support their adult children who are now young doctors, means the young doctors may have to return back to the same professional areas that they couldn’t access before previously, due to their disability.

The government are well aware that they are removing trainee doctors from the future medical workforce who could have helped patients. Yet they aren’t giving them anywhere else suitable to go to work.

So for these disabled doctors are lucky enough to have families or families who have money or pensions, then their families will now have to pay more support them as long as they are working by making up the pay difference from any savings and pensions in the family that they can find. But that’s a finite time-limited resource. so at some point unless the 10% pay cut is reversed it will stop being sustainable. What then?

And also what happens if the whole hospital shuts down due to government policies aimed at effectively closing it? What do the trainee doctors relying on working at that hospital do then?

Talk about lobbing a 20% rock tax into education. Look at how the gov tries to avoid that with other sectors and tariffs but actively uses education just for votes not to benefit any dc. So bad.

You asked what the DOCTORS in my family thought about the strikes, not what I thought. They are the ones who think it's immoral. I didn't voice my own opinion.

There are hints in both the Times and the Telegraph that Bridget Phillipson may be up for a reshuffle… my local library stocks these papers. Anyone know more? Just rumours?

Have also noticed Catherine McKinnell is much more visible in recent days. She seems far more sensible to me. I only remember her slight rebellion against Corbyn many years ago. At least she is not one of them.

@IHeartHalloumi Yes, meanwhile in the real world. Of course the government pretty much did all those things. The current situation with F1s &F2s is batshit and the scope creep of PAs and AAs is terrifying. There’s no need for batshit scenario building by randoms on here. The reality is worse than the ill-informed musings.

Yep heard them last week. She's a danger to education so can't go fast enough!

She shouldn’t be allowed to work with children going forward.

FWIW Bridget Phillipson is not the main problem.
The policy was implemented by the treasury. The DfE recommendations to mitigate the damage were ignored by the treasury. It's very clearly Rachel Reeves, her sister Ellie and Angela Raynor who have been on public record time and again with their desire to destroy the independent school sector. Phillipson gets told what's happening a few day before the public. She's not driving the decisions. Rachel Reeves is.

Good point @Lebr1 - I do not like R Reeves at all, she is simply not up to the job.
I don’t mind Starmer nor Streeting, and I am indifferent to Rayner.
Also dislike Milliband.
In fact, if I had to choose I would sack R Reeves and Milliband first.

Followers of the high court case may remember that the speaker tried to have the NAO report into SEN failures ruled inadmissible in court. He has been in the papers again.

"The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which."

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/may/10/lindsay-hoyle-house-of-commons-speaker-gifts-kept

I don't like Bridget, but not sure this is HER policy.

This is driven by others. If she goes, we just get the same or probably worse.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/tax/outstanding-private-school-close-labour-vat-raid/

Too bad. Apparently £12,000 per year and praised by Ofsted for excellent support of children with SEN.

But BP has refused to engage with indy schools, has consistently posted highly divisive tweets etc, boasted about having never set foot in an independent school, gaslit us etc.
She could have engaged, discussed and tried to understand. She refused. She consistently denied any damage to indy schools/kids etc.

It may be Treasury policy but she has revelled in it!

To be fair, that just sounds like a normal day on these threads

Tis true 🤣

True. They found a particularly spiteful advocate. As said a bit like these threads

Did she even attempt to get the treasury to accept the recommendations to minimise harm? She certainly never spoke up about it. She's meant to be the secretary of state for education: not only the education of children she likes. Not only 'her' children.

The way Labour deliberately maximised harm to kids because their parents have the 'wrong' politics is utterly despicable.

Labour can never claim any kind of moral high ground ever again.

BP is a pawn. She does what she's told. Nothing will change if she is reshuffled out of education.

If Reeves was fired we might be getting somewhere.

Labour are domestically incompetent. I dont like Keir but he has been mainly concentrating on foreign policy and not doing a terrible job. He is therefore leaving Reeves and a few others to run the domestic arena and they are doing a disastrously bad job. Reeves is the big danger. I am so sad that she is the first ever female chancellor!

I was glad to see Lindsay Hoyle having negative press. His involvement in the VAT court case was absolutely disgraceful.

When can we expect any further news on this? It's now been one month since the barristers were back in court.

When the judges have decided.
We had to go back to court a week later as government were trying to suppress evidence!

Do you know the outcome of this? Did the judges ultimately allow the report to be used as evidence?

No we are still waiting verdict on the NAO report 🙄