Why are private school parents punished when they remove a financial burden from the taxpayer?

[FishPhoods]

My DC do not go to private school, if I could afford it I would.

However - this policy makes no sense to me. I'm a TA. The school I work in has huge class sizes and is overstretched.

Starmer is saying that the VAT he proposes to add to private school fees will be channelled into the state education system. However we use the facilities of the local private school (swimming pool, sports fields) two days per week for no charge. If they lose their charitable status we lose access to that.

Also any money gained from VAT will potentially be outweighed by more pupils joining from the local private - or pupils who would have potentially gone but now won't. It costs the taxpayer roughly £8k per year to educate a child in the state system - we won't gain anything like that from VAT to cover the "new" pupils we acquire from the private system.

The way I see it if the rich can afford to or choose to pay for their children's education it's one less burden on the taxpayer. And making schools more expensive just makes them more elitist surely? Financially I just don't see how this makes any sense - is it just a populist thing as people generally feel aggrieved that some have the option of private education when some don't, so it's a way to punish them?

I'm sure academic studies abound looking at why most other wealthy nations have very few children in private schools. Presumably it all boils down to 'State schools are fine here, so why pay?'

If we too had really well run state schools with a good broad-based curriculum covering both academic and vocational subjects, minimal problems with discipline, behaviour, bullying etc, high academic standards, top notch support for SEND children, small class sizes, excellent qualified staff and low staff turnover, fantastic facilities and buildings, terrific extra-curricular opportunities - who would pay for private school? Very few.

So why don't we have that? Money, money, money. Not just that, though. Deeply embedded problems with poor behaviour and lack of aspiration affect all children's attainment and well being and recruitment and retention of staff. We have an abysmal record in supporting families with babies and toddlers so they get off to a really good start in life. By the time some kids arrive in the nursery class they are already years behind in social development, language and motor skills. And the gap widens and widens from that point on. Some schools get far more than their fair share of children like this and nothing like enough resources to support them and their families.

Policies like putting VAT on school fees are just moving the deckchairs around on the Titanic.

Excellent post covering some things that people would seemingly rather not consider.

Yes. Imagine if a similar stream of invective went the other way. It’d be reported and deleted in no time. Somehow it seems to be ok because..

I can imagine what that post was below

Great post and something that doesn’t seem to be part of the conversation. There’s a misguided idea that VAT imposed on PE will magically restore state schools to being fit for purpose (or at least even the playing field somewhat) and that the only issue is money. Firstly the VAT won’t go directly to schools at all, just into the general pot for distribution as the government pleases to whatever they decide to fund. Secondly, there will undoubtably be more children pushed into the state sector with the consequences that come with that. So in my opinion VAT is going to have basically zero impact on improving the state system financially.

Most importantly, the issue with struggling state schools (I’m not saying all -there are obviously some great ones) is in the fabric of society itself. I taught at a ‘Good’ school in a deprived area and many kids came from multigenerational families who hadn’t worked and they themselves had no interest in getting jobs, country line drug cartels were approaching primary school kids to be runners and chucking enough money at them for it to be a career option, social media had led a lot of kids to think they could be millionaires by gaming or putting on makeup, many parents were scared of talking about education and did not support the school in discipline or academics and the support systems such as CAMHs were woefully underfunded to the point we had 13 year old kids staying in hostels due to lack of provision for them. Class sizes were up to 36 and teacher sickness was so high that some classes didn’t have a regular teacher in some subjects all year. And this was a ‘good’ school. The problems run so deep in these kinds of schools and it feels like the VAT on PE is just an easy vote winner with no benefit to anyone. I have both my kids at top end boarding schools and we will absorb the 20% hike - we are extremely privileged to do so but I’m not happy about it purely because I haven’t seen any proof it will make a jot of difference. I appreciate our privilege and if it was clear that this was a slight move toward improving other kids educational experience, I literally wouldn’t bat an eyelid. I just hope that Labour have more solid plans to improve the experience for all children that extends beyond this superficial tax.

Anyone paying fees for schooling is already saving the tax payer the cost of schooling for the child(ren) concerned. There are insufficient state school places to accomodate those in the independent sector. .

This policy can only lead to greater cost to the tax payer, larger class sizes in state a schools, and a reduction in social mobility (independent schools truly will be the reserve of the super wealthy alone - more elitist)

There is also the welfare of all the children who will be forced to leave their current school.

The investment in state education needs to come first, only then, when state education is comparable academically, will the policy be feasible.

It all stinks of green eyed monster with no one considering the welfare of the children concerned.

I agree with you. The policy makes no sense whatsoever ever. People who work extra hours to pay for it won’t bother either which means you lose out on the extra tax they pay as well. It makes private schools more elitist so only the really wealthy can afford it so creating a further divide. It takes away peoples aspirations. The problem with state school is the parents that don’t parent their children and expect others to do it. Private school parents have the right to a state school place so they are freeing up the space for other children. They are paying twice!

Why? I want to have a choice. Last time I checked we live in Democracy.
The hard left wet dream is to abolish private schools. This is the people KS is pandering to.

When the policy first came out wasn't bothered much either way.

After the campaign by the Private schools through the press I'd probably be happy to see them all closed down. And find it quite amusing that the papers now telling us how absolutely essential it is that kids get to benefit from this supposedly superior education are also the ones that rail against any attempts by universities to account for this in admissions.

If anyone does care about the vat issue, read more about it and sign here :

https://www.change.org/p/stop-labour-from-adding-20-vat-to-private-school-fees-and-forcing-kids-to-change-schools/u/32672954?cs_tk=An7Iy1Sp4okMBb7UcWYAAXicyyvNyQEABF8BvE7huEk9vVrX8Yg0wNRkMX8%3D&utm_campaign=d2ae502bce934219954a5d593e74cfe7&utm_content=initial_v0_7_1&utm_medium=email&utm_source=petition_update&utm_term=cs

Removing tax exemptions from private schools likely to have little effect on numbers in the private sector, raising £1.3–1.5 billion in net terms

https://ifs.org.uk/news/removing-tax-exemptions-private-schools-likely-have-little-effect-numbers-private-sector

The results of this plan is that there will be more children in state schools. It’s a very poor thought out policy.

Well. I will tell you what will happen here.
When numbers drop in the private schools, is the local councils will fund students to go to the private schools.

Anyway, surely schools will go for zero VAT on disability as many schools are specialist learning support.

I don’t understand why so many on these threads keep repeating that there’s no school places, class sizes will have to go up etc.

the intake for reception in this September is the first big wave of the baby bust. Schools - both state and private will be down on numbers anyway. There’s already been multiple reports of plans to close state primary schools as the baby bust works its way through the school system, then secondary schools will be next for struggling to fill their places.

there are already spare places in most year groups across the country, and year groups that are the boom ones aren’t transition years, so less likely large percentage of parents will remove their dcs from private school, if it’s only a few who are on the edge financially, it’ll be easy to accommodate them. It’s just not as likely you’ll get the school if you move to state in year 9 as you could have got if you’d applied with all other state parents in year 6 for year 7 start.

given the baby bust, private schools were going to struggle for numbers anyway and a lot would have closed either way.

Not many private schools are specialist.
Councils will be best off providing specialist units attached to maintained schools where necessary - not funding pupils with special needs to go to fee paying schools

No I realise that but they are in my area. This is already happening here - council pays for kids to go to the private schools. They aren't just for LD, they are "specialist" LD schools.

Whilst I agree that the demographics are changing, worth noting that births peaked in 2011-2013 ..those kids are about to enter or already in secondary school (of course, different dynamics at play for primary). Overall, the percentage in private is higher in secondary too. Schools places are tight for those years in general, and particularly in places like some London areas and Edinburgh where private schooling is around 25%. Whilst they might be places across the country and for most year groups, what matters Is for the specific year group and area you need.

A recent survey places at 40% the number of parents considering moving their kids, so far from insignificant.

Many state schools are better than private, they are state in all but name, however not everyone can access them due to the wealthy catchment areas they are in, where the house prices are exorbitant. For me, this is the REAL issue!

Youd then have to drastically reduce the vat threshold ( I think it’s £90,000 turnover?)

Not just punish the parents of these kids but many are not rich as many foolishly assume

The socialist led party if they get into office via the back door with a coalition partner are also "punishing" the state schools and kids as out of the 600k kids in FT private education, a good percentage wont be able to carry on and this in turn will make class numbers in state schools even higher

Labour does not want you to have asperation but its ok if they are multi millionairaes

What is PAN?

@Rainydayinlondon Published Admissions Number, how many they can have in a class/year group

So around 7% of pupils attend private schools. Many will just continue going. Some may move over to state and the small number spread thinly throughout the UK. It's not the masses that many might pretend. They'd like to keep the advantage and don't want the money used raised in VAT to increase maths provision at state schools. The few don't think the masses should have d better apparently. No levelling up then.