Labour’s plans for VAT on Private Schools

[Busydadof2]

The Labour Party has proposed introduction of VAT on private schools.

In the scheme of things the money they will bring in from this is tiny compared with total expenditure on state schools, while it will drive more burden on the state system as some parents leave private schools. I think this is a populist ploy to get traditional Labour voters to vote for what is in any other sense a centrist party.

Have you considered signing this petition to make sure the policy gets scrutinised and the weight of public sentiment against it is known?

Change.org petition: Stop Labour from adding 20% VAT to private school fees and forcing kids to change schools

www.change.org/p/stop-labour-from-adding-20-vat-to-private-school-fees-and-forcing-kids-to-change-schools

Various perspectives from the signatories of this vote come to mind and resonate with our own situation, including this: “I work in a state school with over 30 in a class and oversubscribed. My 2 kids went or go to private schools and we have sacrificed loads to do this. We are NOT wealthy, many of the kids at the school I work at live in bigger houses and have much more disposable income than we do. We chose to send our kids to private school rather than live in a bigger house instead of our semi detached on a main road. We holiday in the UK every year and I work full time. I buy my clothes on the high street or in charity shops. Many parents at the school my kids attend are in exactly the same situation. I agree there are some very wealthy parents there too and the addition of VAT will not even make an impact on them, they will pay it without batting an eyelid. All this will do is push the kids like ours back into an already oversubscribed state system, increase class sizes even more and create a bigger divide as private education will become truly elitist.”

I think you are slightly viewing this from the wrong angle. Labour would view this as positive thing though, as more middle class children send their kids to state schools, they become more invested in them doing well, in them being well funded, in becoming governors and joining PTAs etc etc. This then means more schools become good, which benefits kids from more disadvantaged backgrounds. It's an intentional social nudge to result in less private schools, not to make more money in tax.

It has been asked a million times @Dancerprancer19, as there is always someone who comes along and suggests this: what will a handful of formerly private school parents be able to accomplish that 10x more already in the state system have not? The majority of parents at any income band are already in state.

I don't think this is true - most private school families are dual income families working hard to make out all work, the millionaires with trophy wives who have nothing better to do than prop up the pta bake sale are much rarer then you think.

And if this were true wouldn't this just create a massive disparity between state schools in different areas as the private school parents and their magic pta skills wouldn't be evenly spread out?

This makes fuck all sense.

Are you saying that all it takes is a few mums joining to PTA and founding a book club or two and hey presto, every single school is now an Outstanding one.

Also, it's "fewer" not less. I know it's pedantic but for some reason it really pisses me off on a school tread.

I don’t want to tread on any toes, but I think you might have your own proof reading fail there.

I don’t think it will help as you think it will, as it will be more about competing for the already good state schools

But if it doesn’t bring in any more tax how are the pledged extra teachers paid for?

What's your point?

Pots and kettles.

So?

I never claimed my written English was faultless, I know it's not.

And I still don't understand how parents can make the failing academies better. Maybe you can explain how.

I never claimed my written English was faultless, I know it's not.

Ah well. You’re not alone. Fewer eh?

Quite.

it’s not like I’m volunteering to run a grammar remedy club for the state school mums, even though that seems to be expected.

I hate to break it to you, but I’m sure ‘state school mums’ have very little interest in your grammar interventions.

Just as well, because I’m not offering.

Oh come on, is that your best come back?

Disappointing.

My son went to a state school before I moved him to a private school. I live in an affluent area where many well-off people send their children to the local state school. It doesn't make any difference to the school. I personally had no influence. Some parents complain more at this school but that makes no difference and in some ways makes the children's behaviour worse.

As others have said. ...you're making an evidence-free assertion that a few 10s of thousands of displaced families will behave in fundamentally different ways from millions of other affluent, aspiring, hardworking families in state schools, whose "investment" is in catchment areas and tutoring.

The argument this drives up standards across the board has no merit as I wrote about in more detail here, please do have a read. This argument is completely baseless, it's just something somebody penned in the Guardian and then gets repeated everywhere.

https://mrchips4schools.substack.com/p/bright-kids-shouldnt-be-expected

Yes, maybe if you were able to redesign society from scratch you would make sure that private schools didn't exist. It is hard to return to that place.

Arguably the current situation of families paying for state schools via taxation and then not using that funding by schooling elsewhere would be a genius design!

Unfortunately you have this very wrong! Quite the opposite will happen on fact. These children will go into state schools but instead the parents will use (marginally less funds than private school fees) to heavily tutor their children at home in the afternoons. There will be zero interest in getting involved with the state school rather all effort an engagement invested in the tutoring time leaving a kid very much disengaged and disruptive in his school in his school hours. This already happens in our state school to the detriment of the other children in class who cannot afford additional tutoring. Thinking that suddenly private school inclined families would be interested in investing in state schools is rather over optimistic. Also don’t forget of the number of foreign high net tax contributing families who will leave to go back home and give their children better and cheaper international/ private school Education in their home countries. This is all going to back fire - just wait and see!

Loads of kids had tutors when l was teaching secondary a couple of years ago. I taught for 25 years.

None of them were disruptive or disengaged. They were the opposite.

Is there any evidence that being tutored makes kids disruptive and disengaged? I wouldn't be surprised if this proposed influx of private school kids made for bigger top sets-but in my experience that's good for schools, not worse for them.....

So the proposed VAT on school fees is estimated to raise £1.6 billion in tax revenue.

However VAT on school fees is estimated to drive away 25% of pupils:

www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/private-school-fees-vat-labour-b2531694.html#

So instead it would raise only £1.2 billion. However given that there are currently 615,000 private school pupils this would mean that 157k would then enter the state schools at a cost of £7,460 per pupil or £1.17 billion. Meaning the VAT would only raise £83 million.

This doesn't factor in many private school parents pre paying private school fees ahead of the VAT introduction.

In short VAT on private school fees could actually end up costing all taxpayers money rather than actually raising money.

Exactly. It’s such a short sighted policy. It achieves nothing other than disrupting perfectly happy children. The Labour Party should be ashamed of themselves for using children as a political bargaining chip.

I agree. Well said

@Another76543

"It achieves nothing other than disrupting perfectly happy children. "

It appears to be based more on the politics of envy rather than sound fiscal policy.

Which is fine in a democracy but why restrict it to just education- why not tax private health or expensive cars having a higher VAT rate etc