Election - how soon for VAT on school fees?

[Labtastic]

So I see we're likely to have an election in early July. Obviously that spells the end of the godawful tories which is great, but also hastens the incoming VAT on school fees which, for us, is bad. We are one of those families that no one believes exists who stretch ourselves with school fees, and are going to be very pushed for an extra 20%.

Question is - do we think Labour can make this happen in time for September? It'll be our DC's last year of fee paid education and was hoping the timeline for VAT coming in would be stretched out a bit...

I’ve a lot of family who work in different private schools across the country - all of them are apparently planning on making cuts where possible and passing on as little as they can. Most of the smaller independents will go bust if they pass the full 20% on to parents because many won’t be able to afford it and will leave.

One thing that scares me slightly is that on Jeremy Vine today they had the Labour shadow chancellor and she mentioned Vat and business rates. I can understand the former but the latter would surely just crucify the sector?

No it can’t come in from September. At any rate the schools will be sending invoices long before then to get paid for the year and they’ll need to know before they invoice if they need to be registering for VAT and adding VAT on to fees.

So has yours.

You were apparently privately educated yet want to make it as hard as possible for other to do the same for their kids.

Hypocritical much?

You also never answered if your feelings towards this is because you’ve a vested interest that it might out price your ex and you wouldn’t lose your CM ( which wouldn’t happen as the judge wouldn’t allow it)

Yes, I believe they’ve said they want to look at business rates as well.

So I’m hypocritical because I’m not completely self centred and unable to see various sides of an argument? Ok.

I didn’t answer that because I can’t control how my ex behaves and I don’t have an opinion about it. And you obviously don’t know much about the reality of family court which is something I want to avoid at all costs.

I can’t work out how any school could survive having business rates added - am I missing something?

Your first argument was that I’m bitter and twisted because I’m so jealous of privately educated people.

If you went to private school yourself then it clearly didn’t do much to enhance your own debating skills.

If your DC is only there for one more year, could you pop the extra couple of grand on a credit card and pay it off in instalments?

I do feel for the kids who are looking forward to starting in September and will now have to change plans.

People can be really nasty about private education (grammar, too) but what it all boils down to is that we all want what's best for our kids.

As to what I'm arguing- I've made it clear - I do not believe it'll generate more money overall.

But why are you arguing this with me as I haven’t said otherwise?

Your narrative of what you think private school parents are like

I don’t know how else to explain it to you, my point about Brexit & the NHS was to do with optics in a campaign. Nothing to do with how private school parents vote.

But the private school parents I know are not represented on this thread. Some of the posts read like a parody.

Ok, I’m intrigued - which 10 GCSEs do your DCs take that ARE not in states schools in your area? Have the foregone English, Maths Science, modern languages,
Science, Drama, tech etc in favour of GCSEs in Medieval pottery, Dressage and Flower arranging???

"Our private school offers around 10 GCSE subjects which our catchment school doesn’t offer at all."

Yes. That's the sort of thing you're paying for! It's not the state school being delinquent in some way....

@Wewelcomeyourfeedback Maybe langauge subjects like Latin, Russian. Mandarin?

I mean that they both do the standard GCSEs (English, maths etc), but our school offers 10 options (a few of which are languages) which the state schools don’t offer.

The best thing about this thread are the contradictory arguments from those against VAT.

“Why are you jealous & want to take something from me out of spite“

“You should be concerned about the widening wealth gap”

”How can you be so cruel to the poor dc who now have to attend state school”

”Fine, we will just push you out of catchments by increasing house prices & take more grammar places”

”It will be your dc in the sink schools”.

people just aren’t going to get behind this cause 😆

My comment was in response to a previous poster suggesting that it would be easy for a GCSE student to switch mid course from private to state. The point I was making is that it wouldn’t be, because the state schools don’t even offer some of the courses which the pupils will be taking.

I hope so ! 🤞

If you’re not paying fees any more you can get a tutor for the Ancient Greek.

As state school places have already been allocated for September, I would have thought they would not want to introduce it too rapidly. I also hope Labour consider children who might have to leave in Yr10 or Yr12 who are half way through their exam courses. Would those children have to repeat the year again in state school or switch curriculum and exam boards half way through?

The local school doesn’t even offer GCSE music. It’s not about my personal situation anyway. My children will be staying exactly where they are. My comment was in response to a poster suggesting it’s easy to transfer schools mid GCSE course. It’s not even easy to find tutors in some areas.

It'd have to get through commons and then lords, surely you are talking yrs.

I think the implications would be too much, yes education needs changing but not like this.

I don’t think it would. No-one is quite sure exactly what they are proposing but simply changing the VAT notice wouldn’t require primary legislation

I presume that if Labour get in they will want to introduce VAT as soon as possible but it’s really bad timing with large birth years currently going through secondary school. All of the secondary schools where we live are currently full, even the unpopular ones, and newcomers to the area are struggling to find places and the council are having to pay to transport children to available spaces miles away. The primary schools that were over full a few years ago now have surplus spaces, so it would surely make more sense to wait until that passes through to secondary level and they are trying to fill those spaces, rather than merge and close secondaries, as is happening with primaries.

I believe you. But rather than feel you are entitled to continuing to benefit from low fees, consider yourself very lucky the fees were lower at a time you were saving.

There are many things I can't afford to pay for for my children, because there's a limit. The limit would be more achievable for if taxes were waived, but they won't be. Why are parents like you entitled to have it easier than other parents?

It's completely indefensible in my opinion, and it's not about rich vs poor, it's about principles of fairness.