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.”

Hmm at going to an insult

It doesn’t make your position any less problematic

I think you’re unaware of what the Baines survey entailed so this is all you can go with

It doesn’t make the outcome any better.

Baines Cutler is a lobby group for independent schools, and is campaigning against ending these tax breaks.

We both know this.

I don’t share your view on this so there’s no ‘we’. I doubt you are aware of their process.

They did a survey to all parents. The only ones who have afaik

It’s hard to predetermine behaviour but asking is better than not, and that’s the result they have.

Ok so you disagree with me and the Financial Times about Baines Cutler.

I know the process and whilst it won’t be perfect asking parents is better than not

No one else has bothered to survey. Behaviour is hard to predict, but how else can you without actually asking

That's the first I've heard of that. Is there any evidence? Thanks

Our mainstream independent school has loads of kids with SEN. It's "better provision" in general, according to the parents who came here from state school, because of smaller classes and fewer disruptive children

Paul Johnson, Director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, warned: “Don’t be fooled into thinking [school fee VAT] is going to make any real difference to the amount of money available for public services.”
This policy will be a significant distraction from efforts to make state schools better (which we all strongly support), and as others are showing, runs the risk of generating negligible or negative tax revenue. Whatever is the best way to improve education for all, it should be funded in the least harmful way, and this isn’t it.

Where does this part of your quote come from? It’s not in Paul Johnson’s 90 second explainer.

This policy will be a significant distraction from efforts to make state schools better (which we all strongly support), and as others are showing, runs the risk of generating negligible or negative tax revenue. Whatever is the best way to improve education for all, it should be funded in the least harmful way, and this isn’t it.

Apologies, that is from another piece of writing quoting Paul Johnson, you can see by the speech marks.

Paul Johnson’s linked clip stated: “you might want to do this [charge VAT on school fees] for reasons of social justice or equity, or because you feel that it’s appropriate to charge VAT on private school fees, but don’t be fooled into thinking it’s going to make any real difference to the amount of money available for public services.”

Where did your other paragraph come from?

An open letter to Keir Starmer from a parent - the parent that started the change petition.

I still think there was another IFS comment on their study.

On a slightly different note, but symptomatic of Left-wing bias against independent schools, Cambridge University's exam data are scandalous.

They seemed to stop putting their results by school type into the public domain after 2017-18. At that point, students from independent schools were nearly 20% more likely than students from academically nonselective state schools, and 15% more likely than students from grammar schools, to obtain a first class examination result.

If that was to conceal the extent of their manipulations in favour of students from a particular type of school it was a good decision. Fast-forward six years, and an FOI shows that the proportion of exam entries by non-selective state school students increases from 27.1% to 34.8% (the grammar school proportion interestingly sticks at almost exactly 17%) the proportion of exam entries by independent school students falls from 32% to 25% and students from independent schools are now 46% more likely to achieve firsts than students from non-selective state schools, and 22% more likely than students from grammar schools.

"The principal aim of the Admissions Policy of the Colleges of the University of Cambridge is to offer admission to students of the highest intellectual potential, irrespective of social, racial, religious and financial considerations." But plainly not irrespective of the type of school that their parents chose for them.

Would you have the source for those numbers please

I have it as a PDF, ironically from the university's governance and compliance division. It may or may not be readable as a screenshot.

Thank you!

Urgh it's brexit all over again. People who haven't really looked into something believing a slogan on a bus. This is going to harm state education ultimately and the rest of the world will be laughing at us again sadly.

you think the “rest of the world” cares about vat policy on private school fees in the U.K.?

I think other countries who don't tax education, and do value education, will think it's a regressive move.

You haven't a clue in reality though.

The rest of the world understands how weird the British private school system is.

Lots of countries have private schools.

None of them have an education tax. Because education has social benefit regardless who pays, and independent schools save taxpayers £8-12k per child.

The £2.5k tax exemption is a bargain.

Saying I "haven't a clue" isn't really an argument. Nobody knows but I can make an educated guess - as should have been the case with brexit.

On the contrary, lots of international students use our private schools.

For the 'you don't know what you're talking about' brigade, there's lots of evidence that it's going to end badly. They tried it in Greece, raised very little money, overloaded the state system, and a lot of teachers left the profession:

https://www.economist.com/europe/2015/10/30/greece-reconsiders-a-tax-on-private-education

Hmmmm....

It's not strictly correct there's "lots of evidence" because....no other country's been dumb enough to try it before...only Greece.

So it's 100% of the evidence, being precisely one example. Sorry to be picky.

What's also relevant is those Greek loons were actually Marxists. Marxists are expected to do stupid things. We don't have to follow their dismal example.

They don't tax education any more.

New Zealand do - and it's not an education tax, state education is available. It's a tax on a freely chosen service.

Why are PS parents not more critical of the actual private schools for upping the fees so much? Lobby them, not the electorate. Ask them to increase class sizes or cut back on some of the services they offer.

Far more children will suffer if the Tories continue in government than if Labour are elected, so this minority interest is not really that important to anyone other than a very small % of the population so 🤷🏻‍♀️. If you chose to spend money on private education, then lobby the providers of that education.

NZ private schools are also subsidised by the state.