Whitehall “braced for private schools collapse” 6

[ICouldBeVioletSky]

Continuation of previous threads to discuss VAT on independent school fees.

@EasternStandard - if the rest of Europe are going digital ID, do you really want to be the only country not to?
It worked pretty well during Covid. Of course there are always risks of data breaches, but better to have a consorted Government wide effort surely. And it would also benefit a growing tech industry.

Billions spent on track and trace for Covid but no ability to control illegal immigration? None of this makes logical sense.
Remember the Millennium Dome? They spent so much on it, then had no idea what to do with it for a few years. Eventually it was repurposed for great use for all.

All these Tory held deep seated ideological anti Europe/anti ID as a concept beliefs are going to harm us all and not make us safer. It is also bollocks, the Government here has loads of data on all of us, via NHS and state education. Far more than in many other European countries, by the way!

I’m not sure about aligning it to a party for me. I was equally against greater state during Covid.

My preference is better borders and preserved liberty for citizens within them.

If the U.K. does start to restrict through digital means then I’m just glad to have another option where there’s lower requirement to do it.

@EHCPerhaps I follow what you’re saying until the end of your post. How would we easily not allow people to stay and meet international laws at the same time?

What changes for the U.K. to simply say no to granting asylum?

This quick read fact checker is clear on how the facts stack up legally on the relationship between ECHR and deporting migrants: https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2024/10/17/fact-check-is-the-echr-really-blocking-the-uk-from-deporting-migrants#:~:text=%22Even%20if%20the%20UK%20decided,the%20ECHR%2C%22%20Trispiotis%20said.

The vast vast majority of migrants come to the UK perfectly legally, under terms decided by Parliament so that’s an electoral question for voters to decide on like any other issue and is where focus should be in this debate not legal red herrings. We have an ageing population and need legal immigrants but that’s a debate for another thread.

If this call to leave ECHR is about wishing to return the very much smaller numbers of people who are asylum-seeking, then the European Court of Human Rights plays a limited role there. It can only block deportations where there is evidence that the person can suffer very serious harm by being returned to a third country.

That legal principle (of ‘non-refoulement’) is not only based on the ECHR but is also key in other international law, treaties and obligations including the UN's 1951 Refugee Convention, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the UN Convention Against Torture. So we’d have to say we also want to withdraw from all of those as well. People at risk of serious harm to freedom and ther life. Torture. Execution:. Is that really who we are?

And of course affecting far greater numbers of people, every one of us in the UK, we would at the same time be destroying our own ultimate recourse to protect our human rights in order to secure this non existent ‘victory’. An extremely dangerous thing to do in such politically unstable times.

Trigger warning: from the Mail:

“Boy, 8, turned away by NHS because he is a private school pupil

…Her son was referred to a paediatrician at Kingston Hospital in south-west London after she noticed he was 'struggling to hold the pen well enough to write properly', along with other mobility issues.
At the hospital appointment she was asked to fill in a form which asked: 'Where does your child go to school?' And days later, she received a text message saying the child had been 'declined' the crucial next appointment with occupational health therapists.
She then discovered that the specialist unit had written a letter to her GP saying: 'We are unable to see this child as we do not provide a service to school age children who attend an independent schools [sic]. We are only commissioned to provide a service to the mainstream schools.'”

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14790767/Boy-8-turned-away-NHS-private-school-pupil-MP-Labour-raid-schools-discrimination.html

Ugh. Fucking disgraceful. Lets be honest though, the imminent collapse of the steaming pile of shit that is the NHS is a whole other story.

@EasternStandard - why would a digital ID infringe our civil liberties? The whole point is to keep us safe and make sure they can raid the barbers/nail bars/criminal underworld and deal with people who are not meant to be here and are working illegally and many of them are actually being exploited anyway. With a digital ID you would get NHS access, pharmacy access, state education and employment, you would only be able to rent with it etc etc. It really would make illegal migration much harder. It is simply a local passport.
If the rest of Europe is going to do it, and we do not, then all the illegals will simply come here, to access services. So we will always have to do what our neighbours do. To keep ourselves safe. It they do it, we have to do it, logically speaking. You really cannot control our borders properly. That is not going to happen.

commission.europa.eu/strategy-and-policy/priorities-2019-2024/europe-fit-digital-age/european-digital-identity_en

I'd be very happy with digital ID provided it was ultra secure. It's the security online that I'd be worried about. Maybe get Apple to do it? Not British but they seem to be the best at digital security!

Even more off topic - why is means testing so complicated? It's always trotted out as an excuse to do/not do something regarding benefits or school meals - 'means testing would cost more than it would save' Why? Doesn't HMRC know your income? I don't get it

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/06/08/labour-abandons-manifesto-pledge-hire-teachers-schools/

anyone read more on this? Apparently the 6,500 new teacher target now does not include primary schools (this has fallen by nearly 3000 according to the article), overall number of teachers down as a result.

If this is correct,

a) where is the money from VAT (guess not ring fenced)?
b) not great given additional former independent school pupils?

As usual, we're in-group when it comes to paying for everyone else, and out-group when we need anything ourselves.

It is a fucking disgrace, though. Discriminating against disabled children ffs. And they actually think they're the good guys.

Hope they are forced to change it. Doubt they will be.

I am not at all suprised about the above story from the Mail. I know that a parent at the private school my oldest DC used to attend was told by a NHS medical “professional” that they didn’t need support for their autistic son because “they had money”.

Not related to DS’s education (at least I don’t think it was - now I’m wondering), but we’ve been fired by CAMHS twice “because he’s autistic”. The second time they refused to provide intervention, they told us we’d have to go to our local autism service instead. I told them that there isn’t one. They replied “we know”.

And yet there are still people out there who insist that the policy is both fair and effective.

That's awful! What support were you seeking that you were denied? I thought ASD support was covered by CAMHS. It certainly should be in the absence of another service!

Would definitely be interesting to know whether they provided the intervention you were denied for any children with ASD.

We needed urgent mental health support. We got nothing, and “because he’s autistic” was the reason.

That's really awful. I'm so sorry. I hope you were able to help him a different way.

Thats so awful I’m so sorry CatkinToadflax

The exodus from private schools can’t just be measured by percentages—it’s also about the quality of students leaving. If you look at top schools like Westminster, St Paul’s, King’s, and City, the students leaving these schools for greener pastures (usually grammar schools) aren’t the ones struggling to keep up; it’s often the academic elite who are leading the exodus to avoid paying fees that can exceed £60k per year before tax. These students are then taking up spaces that might otherwise go to kids from marginal income groups or those who have worked incredibly hard to secure a place. It’s like parachuting in the top 0.1% of the best from leading schools, who often ace grammar school exams—not because the exams are easy, but because these kids have the caliber. So in essence, some grammar school seats are being taken by private school kids.

🤣You have no idea whatsoever what proportions of the 11,000 are leaving from different age and ability bands, or from specific geographic locations, it’s just a number which doesn’t tell anyone a huge amount (yet). The fact is, 11,000 children out of well over 9 million school age children is not a big percentage of school age children. There will without doubt be a political headache for Labour over education, but at this time, this is not it.

You might not care about 11000 children out of 9 million. BP and Labour certainly don't.

But when you expected to extract £4k per year out of each of those children - and instead you have to start paying £8k per year to educate them - that's £12k per child down on the moolah bonanza you had promised the voters.

For 11,000 children, that adds up to being £132million short in VAT moolah, out of the £1.7billion theoretically possible.

Just £50,000 children moving - 4 times the "irrelevant" number who moved in the first term - would mean the policy starts to lose money.

That could become a political headache for Labour quite imminently.

For those not on the ENT group, looks like the court ruling will be shared Friday morning

I think they have far bigger headaches affecting far more people. And funding as high as £8k per child in the state sector would be lovely, thanks. When do state educated children start to benefit from this massive uplift?

Whether good, bad, evil, or indifferent, I do not think there is anything to be gained from claiming VAT on school fees is more politically significant than it actually is. The majority of people will be focused on mass redundancies in the state sector, in state schools closing (not the private schools that are also closing), in the effect of lack of SEN funding and special schools on the solvency of state schools and on Local Authorities. 11,000 children is neither here nor there compared to the entire population of the UK under the age of 21, including those 11,000 children, being comparatively shafted one way or another.

They already do, on average.

But you're right, we can't assime the average. If a higher proportion of the children moving have expensive SEN - because their parents were willing to risk a more precarious financial position in order to meet their children's unmet needs - then the policy will go into the red at an even lower number.

The policy will be in red, by what number is debatable. The larger point is that not everyone availing state and grammar is a net positive tax payer, by shifting a proportion of net positive tax payers to a free service, the government is contributing to the borrowing figures, albeit by a small amount, but is still going to end up borrowing more