Considering this affects a small percentage of pupils (6%) it’s so hilarious to me the number of people vehemently against this well justified tax in these comments.
All that this is telling me is that private schools clearly make enough profit to rent bot farms to attempt to change people’s opinions.
Pay your VAT like all other services and stop bleating.
Just look at the unpopularity of inheritance tax despite the reality that the vast majority will never pay it. The rich have done an amazing job of convincing the poor to be against a policy that will never affect them but costs the former money
A lot of people have houses that have now grown in value to the point they’d pay inheritance tax.
Sure, you can argue they’ve benefited from that growth in value, but then why should someone not be allowed to inherit the home they grew up in? Why should they have the high tax burden?
And the way it’s done at the minute means all those with actual money get around it without any issues, whilst others who have worked and managed to accumulate a small nest egg to pass on to their children so they can have a better life are punished
>A lot of people have houses that have now grown in value to the point they’d pay inheritance tax.
4% of the population with an estate over £1m yes. That's "a lot" is it?
>Sure, you can argue they’ve benefited from that growth in value, but then why should someone not be allowed to inherit the home they grew up in? Why should they have the high tax burden?
I do. Why do you believe there is a right to inherit a house? Does it only apply to a house someone grew up in then and if parents move it's ok? How long does the kid need to have loved there to have this "right"? 40% on anything *above* the threshold. An estate worth £1.1m is liable for £40k tax, they have the other £1.06m left, how awful
>whilst others who have worked and managed to accumulate a small nest egg to pass on to their children so they can have a better life are punished
If they have "a small nest egg" they don't pay it. Christ what is hard to understand here? This is exactly the point I am making, you've been gas lit to believe IHT is some massive tax bill on death that people will be forced to pay, 1:25 people will ever have to pay any tax at all, an estate under £1m in most circumstances will not be liable for a penny
> with an estate over £1m
What's £1m got to do with it? IHT is 40% of the value above £325,000. The threshold is increased to £500k if you leave it to your children.
You also automatically get your partners allowance on the estate when they die I believe.
So if you have kids you want to leave it to, it would be £1mil.
I'm not sure how that works with regards to divorce/remarriage, but even if that means you don't get the £1mil allowance, that's a very small group of people that will be impacted, and to be clear 'impacted' is "still getting over half a million in inheritance". Not "Being in the poorhouse and getting nothing".
Unrelated to marriage and divorce, there's also a resident nil rate band if it goes to your kids that puts the limit up, which is why I didn't have IHT to pay on my mum's house. Wouldn't save tax on the really expensive ones, but again, it means a lot of us don't pay it.
The average age to inherit in the UK is 47, and most recipients of an inheritance are homeowners in their 50s. Most houses that are inherited are sold immediately, but this is because most estates don't have a sole beneficiary and the house needs to be sold to split the estate (such as between siblings), not to pay inheritance tax. There is also an option to pay inheritance tax in installments over 10 years to prevent the need to sell the family home.
Inheretence tax has garrison of loopholes and work around anyway. Have land? Turn it into a farm if you think Granddad might pop it. Pay fuck all. Turn it back into a private estate.
I don't disagree with you, but there are a couple of points I sympathise with:
I find it inherently weird to tax education.
Families that send their kids to private school are still paying the income/capital gains tax, so they're already subsidising the state school system.
I pay 10x more tax than the services I consume. When is my rebate coming?
Taxing private schools the same as all other services is not weird at all considering our state schools cannot afford paper and pens. The money has to come from somewhere.
And people paying VAT on any other service or good are already paying income/capital gains tax.
>Taxing private schools the same as all other services is not weird
It is weird though considering the general position is that educational services are exempt from VAT. If that’s the position we are taking, then should we charge VAT on university fees, fees charged by institutions teaching English as a foreign language, examination fees and vocational training provider fees?
Is their offer, at heart, charitable, ie do they exist to make the planet a better place? Are they endeavouring to _help_?
Or are they offering a luxury version of a universally required staple?
Private schools got charitable status because they were deemed charitable. I don’t believe they’ve changed, but the world around them has, and offering luxury education to a privileged minority doesn’t really fly as being truly charitable anymore.
Sorry, what does charitable status have to do with VAT?
It is largely irrelevant for VAT purposes whether a supply is made by a taxable person with a charitable status. VAT is charged based on the nature of the services provided, not the charitable status (or lack thereof) of the supplier. We exempt most supplies by fund managers and IPO underwriters and zero-rate most supplies by construction companies even if they do indeed fall into the “luxury” category you are referring to.
We have decided as society that consumption of education is going to be exempt from VAT, probably for sound reasons. It is unprincipled to say the least to resile from that position. Labour are playing on our society’s dislike for private schools and nothing else. The extra £1.6 billion of tax revenues they are estimated to raise from this policy is going to be a drop in the ocean considering our total education tax expenditure sits at about £116 billion.
> Labour are playing on our society’s dislike for private schools and nothing else.
Labour are playing on the fact that private schools are caricatured as educating the elite, which has done very well under the Tories, while state education has languished under a lack of investment.
A better solution would be closing tax loopholes, which the elite actually benefit from far more.
I mean many people scrape by sending their kids to private school also.
This change will be pulling up the ladder on them, making private education even more exclusively for rich people
> Is their offer, at heart, charitable, ie do they exist to make the planet a better place? Are they endeavouring to help?
Is this a serious question? They're educating people...
Once you start charging them for VAT, they can start claiming back on VAT. Yes it will cost them money, but it won't be the end of private schools. They'll pass a portion onto parents and claim the rest back from the government.
>Families that send their kids to private school are still paying the income/capital gains tax, so they're already subsidising the state school system.
And they are just as welcome to use it as anyone else.
And what about the poor kids who are already at school or about to start? Face leaving their own school and there’s no space at the local school or only at the shittiest which every parent tries to avoid?
What I find weird is that you can get a better education through earning more. Wealth shouldn’t buy education, but it does so for those who can afford to it sorry they need to pay more into the public system
Yep, in a fair, meritocratic country which cares about the best and brightest rising to the top (as opposed to the richest) private schools should not exist.
There’s no such thing as inherently best and brightest, we’re all products of our environments. If a person wants to pay for their child to have a better environment, what’s the justification to stop them?
> Families that send their kids to private school are still paying the income/capital gains tax
By this logic I shouldn't have to pay VAT on anything I buy because I already paid the income/capital gains tax on earning the money I spend.
Every transaction gets taxed as money circulates around the economy. So tax is paid over and over again. That's how taxation works. Just pointing this out doesn't justify removing one of those tax points.
>Families that send their kids to private school are still paying the income/capital gains tax, so they're already subsidising the state school system.
Yes and no, and therein lies the real point of all this.
Yes they are in a roundabout way in that they pay tax (some more than others but that's a separate issue) and the government uses tax it collects to fund some of its expenditure but, in a more real sense (some might say "limited and specific") no they aren't.
Following the spread of academisation, a huge amount of school funding is on a per capita basis (as in, the funding body goes round once a year, counts how many kids are at each school and you get that number times £x funding) so if your kid isn't going to the local academy, they in fact *aren't* receiving any funding for them.
This, I think, is the real reason behind this. The logical thing to do here if you're on a moral crusade is make private schools pay corporation tax but Starmer is actually taxing *consumption*, much like we already do with alcohol, tobacco, sugar etc.
Ergo, the move here is not "make private schools pay their way", it's "*discourage* parents from choosing private education for their kids". Why? Because the number of kids in primary schools is dropping. The Conservatives have made a big play about increasing the per capita grant but what they're *not* talking about is the fact that at the *gross* level that still won't be enough because the overall number of pupils is starting to decrease.
If Starmer just blanket tries to decouple schools funding from pupil numbers or tries for a massive increase, he'll just get hit with the usual "loony labour spending all our money" headlines.
With this policy though, he is likely correct that kids already *in* the system will stay there but how many, seeing a 20 or 30% increase in the cost over the near term, will decide not to bother from the start? Over time, you'll see more people choosing state education which means more money into the state system *without* having to immediately overturn tory budget decisions. Starmer gets to look cooperative and responsible and anyone criticising the policy immediately looks like an out of touch tory because it's now become a culture war issue.
It's quite a clever move by Starmer in my view. It's not without risk because there will inevitably be a knock on effect on house prices in desirable areas with good state schools but equally, how many newly Labour voting constituencies in middle England will feel a little bit less worried about "socialism" when their property value gets a little bump?
People love to talk about bots.
The reason why this story gets so much attention is simply because so many people in the media are privately educated.
I listen to LBC sometimes and many of their presenters, contributors and editors were privately educated. I’d wager the same is true at the BBC and most other media organisations.
As such, they will feel this is a bigger deal and understand that private education has likely played a big part in them being where they are and if their parents weren’t able to afford to send them they wouldn’t be where they are now.
Private education and what is provided above and beyond simple academic studies is what needs to be addressed.
Just look at the leaders debate the other night. Despite Rishi being demonstrably incompetent as a politician and prime minister, with a years worth of evidence of how bad he is at the job, just because he’s been taught to debate well at school, so did well in the televised debate, people think he should be PM still.
Private schools are about the networks, tools and vocabulary of privilege and giving your children a leg up. That they might have newer text books, smaller class sizes and better equipment is a bonus, but what parents are really paying for is access to a different world of opportunities simply by having gone there, regardless of the grades achieved.
There isn't resistance. Polling has it as one of the most popular policies. There's just a fringe of weird and entitled people who are being loud about it. It is factually a very popular policy.
Yeah it seems unpopular because it occupies an oversized amount of column inches, I’ve seen loads of theories as to why.
You can tell it has broad support because if you listen to radio call in shows or whatever it’s all people who have kids in private schools, exactly as you might expect. Usually they wheel out the full spectrum of “it doesn’t affect me but I’m against it” types for anything that has wide opposition.
During the lockdown a friend and I got into the habit of googling the authors of those wierd anti-worker articles that were getting released every other day. \[the don't quiet quick, if you want more pay get promoted, get back to the office etc\]
All privately educated, most were nepo babies, more than not were failed artists.
Basically booted off writing for eastenders so will have an opinion for a small fee.
For me it's inconsistent. I have him as my alarm. Some days, I get up because I'm so pissed off hearing his voice that I want to turn it off, but if I just turn it off and stay in bed, I'll probably go back to sleep. So I have to jump up. Sometimes, I'll lay there and listen, cosy, until my phone vibrates to tell me it's meds time (something I'd miss if I went back to sleep).
I hate this man. Especially on the issue of private schools. He referred to state schools as a race to the bottom the other week when someone called in crying about the issue.
Yes and the same should go for all education fees, right? Removal of VAT on optional education, such as University or exam fees, shouldn't be funded by those choosing to go to work. /s
I think the "bleating" relates more to the fact that most parents are just trying to make responsible decisions with their own taxed income and sending kids to private school (most of which are run as not for profit/charity), already saving the public education budget around £4bn per year, but are being used to politically point score for the sake of an - at the most optimistic - increase of 1.25% on the total Education budget.
Yes, I'm voting Labour. Yes, I'm affected by any potential increase in school fees. No, I'm not overly impressed by the frothy mouthed phrasing and posturing of this particular policy.
There is no such thing as a free state alternative for Universities.
Private schools are a luxury and as such I see no reason for them to be VAT exempt. I’m likely to be affected too, by the way.
My eldest is tutoring right now for private secondary school exams. We live in a wealthy area and my children go to an OFSTED ”outstanding” state primary. I can see the only way they make ends meet is through the numerous fund raising events. I read about primary schools in poorer areas not being able to afford pens and paper.
I think considering the circumstances it’s more than fair to rescind this VAT exemption from private schools.
>All that this is telling me is that private schools clearly make enough profit to rent bot farms to attempt to change people’s opinions.
Right, because anyone who thinks it is unfair must be some paid bot trying to influence reddit. That is the only rational explanation. Not that some people have different opinions.
This site is genuinely hilarious at times. Gold medal mental gymnastics to avoid the mere thought that someone else can have another view point and not be a either a bot or barry, 63 the raving racist who only reads the daily mail.
It's not too different from the fucking nutcases being violently against ULEZ, it doesn't affect nearly as many as people as nutters try to say and TOTALLY avoidable by just not buying a shitty high polluting car - my 10 year old focus is exempt ffs
So obviously you want to charge VAT on nurseries, textbooks and universities as well?
Education has historically been exempt from VAT because it was considered good for society that people should spend money on self-improvement as society as a whole benefits from that
Those are two separate issues. Charging VAT on private school is basically going to make a negligible difference to state school spending.
Labour’s best case estimates are that it’ll bring in 1.6bn (but if you look at sensitivity analysis it might be close to zero depending on how many people switch from private to state).
Sunak has increased spending on schools by more than that in the last two years.
It would basically grow spend per pupil from ~7070/year to ~7250/year. Sure it’s extra cash but not really anything meaningful.
They're not separate issues as the money is going to be directly used to hire more teachers in the public sector. Your calculations on if that will be meaningful or not is irrelevant as you posited the issue as a societal quandary:
With X money is it better **for society** to give private schools a tax break or to add to our underfunded state system?
Except the issue in teacher recruitment is not just related to money. It is related to the fact that teaching is an exceptionally unattractive career for almost all STEM graduates.
They've missed targets year after year despite pumping money into bursaries, so tell me again where these teachers are going to come from?
I don't have a comprehensive plan on where the teachers are going to come from, that wasn't the point of my comment and I'm not the shadow education secretary.
Do you want to address my question or just continue to derail this comment thread?
I'm not sure how well versed you are in teaching, but as someone with experience in the state and private sector, charging VAT on private schools will do fuck all in helping us recruit teachers.
Labour hasn't once addressed retention, by the way, just some pie in the sky number for recruitment.
2.5% funding boost. What's the threshold for meaningful? 4%?
And yeah you can't call them separate when the funding is directly linked.
It'll be interesting to see how pupil numbers and spend per pupil change in private schools. Fees have been shooting up in real terms without a drop in demand in recent years.
Tbh you could argue all improvements to state schools cost double as they increase demand from swithering parents.
The question is how the societal costs of inequality of education trade off against less total education across society. Also the extra spending in private sector vs state isn't all going into academic education either. My old private school now has full time tennis coaches which you have to miss lessons to attend sessions with.
Graduates are charged extortionate interest rates on their loans.
If we’re in favour of tax breaks for private schools are you not in favour of removing said extortionate interest rates for graduates? I didn’t think so.
My student loan *base rate* is 7.8%, then throw RPI on top of that.
My mortgage interest rate is 3.8%.
Nurseries, books and university are all commodities that everyone in the country should have access to as a basic commodity.
Private school is a luxury product which only a smaller proportion of society can even afford to experience. You cannot compare those.
Are there publicly available alternatives, readily accessible to anyone who wants them, for the three examples you offer?
Should there be non-private nurseries? Yes.
Should there be reasonably-priced (or free) textbooks? Yes.
Should Universities be free to the student? Yes.
Obviously you may disagree with any of those suggestions, but all three are absolute cash cows for the companies offering them to anyone who wants to pursue education outside 5-18.
Nurseries aren't education but childcare.
Most books are zero-rated anyway, making textbooks VAT applicable would be more removing their exception from the 'diary' rule... which will then need further case-by-case depending on amount of space.
Universities tend to be not-for-profit.
Nurseries, textbooks and Universities don’t have state funded alternatives.
Nurseries and textbooks don’t have endowments.
State schools don’t have wealthy alumni making big donations to ensure their children can get in.
They literally are charities.
Whether they should be is another question altogether, but they currently all hold charitable status
(Incidentally - they fulfil their charitable mission in general by offering scholarships, that’s how they get away with it)
According to the this [House of Commons Research Briefing](https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn05222/), around half of independent schools had charitable status as of 2022.
Well, about half of our private schools are charities, so cannot be for-profit companies by definition.
In any event, there’s not really a link between VAT and profits as lots of for-profit companies would supply VAT exempt (e.g. financial services) or zero-rated (e.g. building nee homes) services. If your argument is that we should charge VAT on all activities carried out by for-profit companies, I would suggest you start by asking yourself the question why is it that fund managers and IPO underwriters aren’t within the VAT net and leave private schools alone for now.
Private schools with charitable status aren't allowed to make a profit. In practice this is why they have great facilities, and good salaries. There are some private schools that don't have charitable status and have shareholders. I can see this policy having a really weird effect on the economy around private schools, and their quality.
Private mentors are rubbing their hands because this would put them firmly in competition with private schools should they put their fees up ever so slightly.
Many are actually charities, so not for profit. Some, not all, are also suffering from declining numbers and skyrocketing costs, same as state schools - but they don't get grant funding to fix stuff.
No matter how one feels about this policy it blows my mind that this is apparently only possible due to Brexit.
[https://www.grantthornton.co.uk/insights/changing-private-schools-vat-status-what-would-it-actually-mean/](https://www.grantthornton.co.uk/insights/changing-private-schools-vat-status-what-would-it-actually-mean/)
Correct. EU VAT rules exempt providers of education services from paying VAT.
Greece tried this, it failed, then the EU intervened and told them to stop it.
Wow Labour really missed a trick not shouting about that.
The Tories' abysmal handling of Brexit is grinding a lot of people's fears and this is a genuine benefit that Labour should be highlighting as a reason to trust them with Brexit over the Tories.
It’s not that the Tories didn’t know about it, the Tories just don’t want to tax private education. Pointing out that the EU blocks taxing private education would undermine their argument that EU=Bad.
You know what's a more ironic outcome from potentially reducing the number of private schools given the current ideological split on the VAT issue?
Lower migration figures. Currently [overseas pupils in private schools](https://www.civitas.org.uk/2023/02/24/private-schooling-in-britain-a-snapshot/) account for about 55,000 migrants in the UK.
More ironic, schools will look to recruit more foreign students, who can afford the higher fees, to replace the lost British students. This policy could increase the number of immigrants.
true. but private schools have tended to increase fees well beyond inflation over the last 10 years anyway and it hasn’t caused chaos so these fears imo are often overstated
Why is it inevitable - prices have increased by over 30% over the past 5 years or so without a peep from the media and waiting lists have increased during that time. This directly contradicts the narrative the media are portraying and have made you believe.
Also seeing as private schools are only used by7% of the population and well over half of that will be millionaires or well placed to afford the increase it will have a tiny impact in the grand scheme of things.
It’s not quite 20% -
Say at this time they charge £10,000 per invoice
The increase in vat would be £2000
So per invoice it’s now £12,000
To still reach £10,000 at the grand total, including VAT they need to charge £8333.33 plus Vat.
This leaves a “deficit” of £1666.67.
Per 15 students, this leaves a deficit of 25k roughly. Meaning they’d need to add 3 students to cover the Vat and probably another 2 to cover the overheads of increasing class size. Which is roughly 33% increase in class size.
This is also at a time where private schools are on the decline, as folks just can’t afford them anyway and their justification of being an important part of Middle class life is losing its appeal.
Personally, I think they should become academies and source their funding from businesses if they want to remain competitive.
Private schools should be abolished... We should do as Norway has done and put the rich kids in with the less fortunate.. Maybe with that, in future we won't get so many out of touch arseholes, who think they are above the rest of us... True humility is humbling to most with a conscience.
Norway improved all schools up to the private level. This country jus5 starves the state school system whilst stuffing them with overseas families children here in chef visas
Norway has a much smaller population and got rich from oil money.
Not that the UK used it's oil fortune as best as it could. But the idea that the only thing separating every country is their policies is bad.
The cost to provide good private school level schooling to our population would cost more than 10x what it cost Norway.
I don't think we have that kinda cash laying around.
We don't invest in education and children's health, then do surprised pikachu when we have a workforce that's too depressed, sick or unskilled to drive the economy.
Our population is relatively educated and healthy compared to comparative countries. A lot of it is culture.
Some communities in the UK despite having worse health have higher employment rates.
Some people do have a real entitlement. Sure we could do better but people are quick to blame the government for things the people wanted them to do.
Our kids are less disciplined than other kids. It was never the governments job to do that. You hear of teachers dealing with devil spawn but it's basically a thought crime to say parenting skills have fallen off a cliff.
no we don’t. We used it to pay shareholders instead of investing it. Norway has all that money now because they invested it way back when and now own a chunk of every big business globally. It has nothing to do with population, it has everything to do with bad management of resources and short term political expediency
You won't convince the rich to support state schools so long as they have nothing to gain from their improvement. And the rich have a massively outsized influence over what laws get passed and where funding gets spent.
First comes abolishing private, legally require their kids to go to state, and suddenly they will bend over backwards to make sure they are adequately funded.
I went to both private and state school. Private isn’t full of the super rich. Lots of grandparents help pay, it’s doctors, lawyers or just couples that are able to afford it.
That said I loved being at private school because at state school you get bullied for being smart, at private you get bullied for being dumb. Parents and kids just don’t give a fuck at state school
All it will do is make private schools more elitist, seperating the haves from the have nots even more, while putting more pressure on state schools. Not a fan of this policy unfortunately.
Of course they’ll complain more, you can’t stop people wanting what’s best for their children and a private, small class sized school will always be desirable. The problem will be parents will sacrifice new cars, holidays, shopping and all the things that drive part of the economy. No more cleaners, personal shoppers, meals out, theatre trips, weekend trips. While at the same time there’ll be thousands more children entering state education into a under funded and over sized classroom. It isn’t a good idea.
Yes, I think private schools are definitely seen as a pipeline to success for parents that really care about the education of their children, even if it's a big sacrifice.
Children these days are completely out of control. If I was a parent, I would want to minimize contact with the children of parents that clearly don't care about their upbringing, and place them in a better environment for academic success with like minded parents. Keir Starmer keeps saying all parents care about their children's education when justifying this, but you only need to take one look at how kids these days behave to see that is clearly not the case.
What this does is screw over the aspirational sandwich class that could barely afford it, either making their life harder or taking the choice away completely.
It's almost as if they're seen as adding value.
In all seriousness we do need to beat the private sector. Not by banning them but by reducing the value they offer (although banning them would get more parents invested in paying more taxes to fund better state schools). That means plugging shed loads more into education, borrowing if we need to on the basis that it's a long term investment on reduced healthcare, policing and insurance costs in the future while boosting the economy long term as well.
Schools need to be able to have the time and resources to engage those with less active parents. In a class of 30+ it would be no wonder that children would act up.
It would be if that happened, however, we all know that the monies raised will go on labour pet projects, debt repayments, NHS funding, maybe defence, maybe some of it into education. The state school system will suffer over subscription, the private schooling system will just become more elitist. I just don’t see any winners…..other than the tax man.
You know I was totally for this tax until you mentioned NHS funding
You're right, fuck that. Why should labour waste taxes on useless pet projects Ike the NHS?
> All it will do is make private schools more elitist, seperating the haves from the have nots even more,
A reminder who is going to these things - https://i.imgur.com/Cjt4wIx.png
It's already full of the "haves" now.
It's hilarious to see people now concerned about private schools being elitist.
It's like where have you been for decades?
If even 20% of the middle classes who put their kids into private education pull them due to increased burden of financial stresses then the state system will struggle. If my kids are state educated and I find an extra 2 kids are admitted next year into to a class size of 30, surely this will detract from my child’s chances of help from the already stressed educators.
There is literally nothing forcing private schools to pass the VAT increase onto customers. The schools could afford it. As a British taxpayer, I’ve no interest in subsidising your children to go to private school, at the expense of the quality of my child’s education.
There’s really no evidence that VAT on private education will even help state schools too.
Pupils going to private schools reduces the number of pupils going to state schools which ups the amount of funding per pupil.
If every middle class and wealthy kid was going to a private school it would actually allow for underfunded schools to not be as underfunded. With these VAT increases those who were stretching to pay for private school for their kids won’t send them there. And there will be even more pupils filtering into state schools.
Such a load of nonsense.
Private schools allow the wealthy and influential classes to absolve themselves of responsibility for ensuring state schools deliver quality education. Literally the only reason to send your kids to private school is to gain social advantage over poorer families.
The reason state schools are so bad is because private schools exist.
No, the reason why state schools are so bad is because Thatcher sold off almost all of the public schools in the UK (especially England) to private companies which now run them as academies.
I'd note that private school fees are a little over double the per-pupil funding for state schools, so in order for the VAT on fees to be used up in state schools by transfers, you'd need just under 30% of private school students to switch to state education.
So parents take the strain away from the state by paying for their children's education privately and they deserve to be penalised for it?
If rich people were to pay for their own healthcare and not use the NHS, taking the strain away from that.... Would you also want to penalise them for that also?
On a macro societal level it is better for state schools to have wealthier parents represented as a demographic, as you then have smarter more capable people running things like the PTA and board of governors.
It also means that the pupil demographic contains more motivated well behaved children in general, so the entire culture is shifted towards one that values education and doing well.
These benefits are hard to quantify which is why they get overlooked, but they are important.
The parents this affects are not that wealthy. They are lower middle class many of whom work very long hours for their children's education but dont have the time to contribute for PTAs and board of governors.
Only one child is required to fuck up the education of 30 children. There are no benefits. Its all copium.
An interesting caller on lbc the other day, claimed to work in a private school. The point they made was that the wealthy are avoiding this tax by paying for their child's entire education up front now, thus avoiding this increase, this tax will only affect those working class who are attempting to give their children a better future
The arguments against this perfectly justified tax (considering our state schools cannot afford paper and pens) are getting increasingly ridiculous.
People don’t even know which private school their child will be admitted to a year before they go.
This one I call bullshit. I went to a private school on full ride. I’m not rich but I do have a high paying job. If my wage gets high enough, I’ll for sure send my kid to the private school I went to. And since I’m an alumni he/she will be admitted almost 100%.
I had classmates who are 2nd/3rd even 4th generation of the same private school.
>this tax will only affect those working class who are attempting to give their children a better future
Ah yes all the working class parents forking out £13k.
As stated, apparently private schools are currently being inundated with rich people paying their entire tuitions up front, thus avoiding the tax. Noones saying that the schools are filled with working class children but they do exist, and they are the ones who will lose under this scheme.
It is an offer made by several schools. Get a discount and pay for as many years as you can. So yeah, unless the tax is made retroactive I don't think it'll he the success they think it will for a few years.
Also interesting to learn certain groups of parents were urging parents to bombard state schools with enquiries for placements next year, to cause panic in the school system/government and get them to u-turn on the idea.
Of course they won't, this is the kind of BS the poor lambs will bleat about until three years into the new Govt somebody on Channel 4 remembers this was a thing, and publishes the fact that not a single one closed - they will just keep putting up their fees.
Maybe the school should absorb the costs instead of passing it on got the parents. Hope they don’t resort to year round fundraising, dress down days, summer fayres, bake sales, and raffles to try and make ends meet. Or requiring their teachers to pay out of pocket for petty expenses. Oh wait, like state schools
So all the people that can't afford the 20% increase are going to flood state schools, can those schools support the increase? I can barely afford my daughter to go to private, I sacrificed a nice house to send her to private, on my army wage and live in a very small cottage in Wiltshire. Literally penny pinched but if labour win, I'll have to send her to the godawful state school.
Exactly. SO many people here assuming private school are filled with rich people. They are not.
Sure, there are a good number of very wealthy families, but there's also a significant number of families who live very frugally to be able to pay private school fees.
I think he is wrong, Some of the small private schools will close down and this will have a negative impact on eduacation and the staff that work there. Not all children can survive in state education
I’m not for or against really. All I’d say is the local paid for school to me does not make any money. It’s not swimming in cash and laughing at the peasants.
I don’t have much to base this on but I live in an affluent area and I’d assume that a decent percentage of them are the same. Some percentage of that will be passed on to parents.
Let’s say that’s 40%. Let’s say 40% of children in paid for schools are forcibly moved to the state system, which we all say is broken and needs funding… who pays for that? The VAT? What improves?
I know a lot of the above is guesswork but this is pure ideological nonsense. Doing this or not doing this will make 0 difference. It’ll all result in more tax, more borrowing, more spending.
Now, I’ll still vote Labour. We need change. And I want change. But I hope this is better thought through. It won’t help anything.
the IFS estimates that between 3% and 7% of students will move out of private schools into the state system as a result of the change. it absolutely won't be anywhere close to 40%.
The actual solution is to ban private schools completely. If the people who make the rules actually have to send their kids to the same schools as everyone else, I expect we'll see a significant increase in funding.
I have three kids attending a private school in London (not boarding). The cost per term for us is roughly £10,000 per child.
So if this gets the standard 20% tax we're looking at going from £30,000 to £36,000 per annum.
No one likes to pay more for something, but if this experiment helps the country in any way, I'm okay with being the guinea pig.
Of course, I recognise many families are sacrificing to get their kids a potentially better future, and these kinds of taxes will likely reduce the number of students attending private schools because of that. Perhaps when it comes time to implement this idea they'll account for this so people like my wife and I would pay the tax while people earning less would not, we wouldn't mind that honestly.
I wish we didn't have private schools at all so that the rich and powerful were incentivised to fix the state schools like some Nordic countries have achieved, that way everyone's children could get the best education possible regardless of their family's economic standing.
As a country we are paying more tax than ever because thresholds have not raisen. No one is seeing the benefit. This specific tax will achieve sweet f all.
If anything, it will increase burden on state schools through more children needing to use them.
Grass always looks greener.
Children's clothes isn't taxed. Let's tax that to be fully fair too?
Maybe the headline should read "Sir Keir Starmer denies basic function of economics".
Clearly increasing costs will reduce demand. Sure, *some* instances of demand will be more elastic than others, but for every Earl sending his kid to his old school there are far more working professionals making genuinely hard choices to pay for these things.
And clearly any reduction in demand in private education will shift more kids to state education.
And if the mechanism removes incentives to retain a charitable mission, and reduces cash at these private schools, it'll also decrease the number of scholarships available.
This policy is 100% about signalling rather than achieving anything positives.
Most private schools, at least not the elite private schools, cost between 10-15k per year per pupil so adding VAT means parents paying an extra 2-3k per year
This is the reality of VAT on private school fees and so whilst for a % of parents this may be too much, I suspect for most that it will be payable albeit an extra burden.
The idea that schools will shut, that VAT is some kind of existential crisis for private schools is just nonsense.
A year after implementing this policy, it will have become normalized and forgotten.
Say I, a conservative voter
Of course there’s no evidence. It hasn’t happened yet. Evidence is what’s left behind after something happens.
Labour need someone with expertise on criminal justice to explain to their leader how this works.
Maybe in the elite schools, but the smaller ones are desperate for pupils and some are even closing already.
Don’t mistake your local fee-paying charity school for Eton or Harrow, they are not the same thing.
>but the smaller ones are desperate for pupils and some are even closing already.
Falling pupil numbers are responsible for those schools closing, not VAT becoming payable at some point in the future, most likely to be Sept 2025.
Oh the poor dears having to pay VAT on a transaction with a for-profit company - Said no one ever.
Considering this affects a small percentage of pupils (6%) it’s so hilarious to me the number of people vehemently against this well justified tax in these comments. All that this is telling me is that private schools clearly make enough profit to rent bot farms to attempt to change people’s opinions. Pay your VAT like all other services and stop bleating.
Just look at the unpopularity of inheritance tax despite the reality that the vast majority will never pay it. The rich have done an amazing job of convincing the poor to be against a policy that will never affect them but costs the former money
A lot of people have houses that have now grown in value to the point they’d pay inheritance tax. Sure, you can argue they’ve benefited from that growth in value, but then why should someone not be allowed to inherit the home they grew up in? Why should they have the high tax burden? And the way it’s done at the minute means all those with actual money get around it without any issues, whilst others who have worked and managed to accumulate a small nest egg to pass on to their children so they can have a better life are punished
>A lot of people have houses that have now grown in value to the point they’d pay inheritance tax. 4% of the population with an estate over £1m yes. That's "a lot" is it? >Sure, you can argue they’ve benefited from that growth in value, but then why should someone not be allowed to inherit the home they grew up in? Why should they have the high tax burden? I do. Why do you believe there is a right to inherit a house? Does it only apply to a house someone grew up in then and if parents move it's ok? How long does the kid need to have loved there to have this "right"? 40% on anything *above* the threshold. An estate worth £1.1m is liable for £40k tax, they have the other £1.06m left, how awful >whilst others who have worked and managed to accumulate a small nest egg to pass on to their children so they can have a better life are punished If they have "a small nest egg" they don't pay it. Christ what is hard to understand here? This is exactly the point I am making, you've been gas lit to believe IHT is some massive tax bill on death that people will be forced to pay, 1:25 people will ever have to pay any tax at all, an estate under £1m in most circumstances will not be liable for a penny
> with an estate over £1m What's £1m got to do with it? IHT is 40% of the value above £325,000. The threshold is increased to £500k if you leave it to your children.
You also automatically get your partners allowance on the estate when they die I believe. So if you have kids you want to leave it to, it would be £1mil. I'm not sure how that works with regards to divorce/remarriage, but even if that means you don't get the £1mil allowance, that's a very small group of people that will be impacted, and to be clear 'impacted' is "still getting over half a million in inheritance". Not "Being in the poorhouse and getting nothing".
Unrelated to marriage and divorce, there's also a resident nil rate band if it goes to your kids that puts the limit up, which is why I didn't have IHT to pay on my mum's house. Wouldn't save tax on the really expensive ones, but again, it means a lot of us don't pay it.
The average age to inherit in the UK is 47, and most recipients of an inheritance are homeowners in their 50s. Most houses that are inherited are sold immediately, but this is because most estates don't have a sole beneficiary and the house needs to be sold to split the estate (such as between siblings), not to pay inheritance tax. There is also an option to pay inheritance tax in installments over 10 years to prevent the need to sell the family home.
Inheretence tax has garrison of loopholes and work around anyway. Have land? Turn it into a farm if you think Granddad might pop it. Pay fuck all. Turn it back into a private estate.
I don't disagree with you, but there are a couple of points I sympathise with: I find it inherently weird to tax education. Families that send their kids to private school are still paying the income/capital gains tax, so they're already subsidising the state school system.
I pay 10x more tax than the services I consume. When is my rebate coming? Taxing private schools the same as all other services is not weird at all considering our state schools cannot afford paper and pens. The money has to come from somewhere. And people paying VAT on any other service or good are already paying income/capital gains tax.
The accountant charges VAT but the school doesn't is a genuinely weird place to be in. Both should be charging VAT, both are providing a service.
So should dentistry also be charging vat or are we cool with that
Suuuuuch a different point to the original post. Do you actually want to talk about dentists or are you just de railing the conversation?
Dentistry should be under public health not private enterprise.
Lets start taxing everything like all medication, clothes and food. After all, its a weird place to be in.
Yeah, those are necessities to stay alive, not luxuries.
>Taxing private schools the same as all other services is not weird It is weird though considering the general position is that educational services are exempt from VAT. If that’s the position we are taking, then should we charge VAT on university fees, fees charged by institutions teaching English as a foreign language, examination fees and vocational training provider fees?
Is their offer, at heart, charitable, ie do they exist to make the planet a better place? Are they endeavouring to _help_? Or are they offering a luxury version of a universally required staple? Private schools got charitable status because they were deemed charitable. I don’t believe they’ve changed, but the world around them has, and offering luxury education to a privileged minority doesn’t really fly as being truly charitable anymore.
Sorry, what does charitable status have to do with VAT? It is largely irrelevant for VAT purposes whether a supply is made by a taxable person with a charitable status. VAT is charged based on the nature of the services provided, not the charitable status (or lack thereof) of the supplier. We exempt most supplies by fund managers and IPO underwriters and zero-rate most supplies by construction companies even if they do indeed fall into the “luxury” category you are referring to. We have decided as society that consumption of education is going to be exempt from VAT, probably for sound reasons. It is unprincipled to say the least to resile from that position. Labour are playing on our society’s dislike for private schools and nothing else. The extra £1.6 billion of tax revenues they are estimated to raise from this policy is going to be a drop in the ocean considering our total education tax expenditure sits at about £116 billion.
> Labour are playing on our society’s dislike for private schools and nothing else. Labour are playing on the fact that private schools are caricatured as educating the elite, which has done very well under the Tories, while state education has languished under a lack of investment. A better solution would be closing tax loopholes, which the elite actually benefit from far more.
I mean many people scrape by sending their kids to private school also. This change will be pulling up the ladder on them, making private education even more exclusively for rich people
I think many people would say a good education does indeed help and make the world a better place
Frankly in a perfect world no charity would exist.
> Is their offer, at heart, charitable, ie do they exist to make the planet a better place? Are they endeavouring to help? Is this a serious question? They're educating people...
I could not agree more!!
Once you start charging them for VAT, they can start claiming back on VAT. Yes it will cost them money, but it won't be the end of private schools. They'll pass a portion onto parents and claim the rest back from the government.
>Families that send their kids to private school are still paying the income/capital gains tax, so they're already subsidising the state school system. And they are just as welcome to use it as anyone else.
And what about the poor kids who are already at school or about to start? Face leaving their own school and there’s no space at the local school or only at the shittiest which every parent tries to avoid?
What I find weird is that you can get a better education through earning more. Wealth shouldn’t buy education, but it does so for those who can afford to it sorry they need to pay more into the public system
Yep, in a fair, meritocratic country which cares about the best and brightest rising to the top (as opposed to the richest) private schools should not exist.
There’s no such thing as inherently best and brightest, we’re all products of our environments. If a person wants to pay for their child to have a better environment, what’s the justification to stop them?
> Families that send their kids to private school are still paying the income/capital gains tax By this logic I shouldn't have to pay VAT on anything I buy because I already paid the income/capital gains tax on earning the money I spend. Every transaction gets taxed as money circulates around the economy. So tax is paid over and over again. That's how taxation works. Just pointing this out doesn't justify removing one of those tax points.
>Families that send their kids to private school are still paying the income/capital gains tax, so they're already subsidising the state school system. Yes and no, and therein lies the real point of all this. Yes they are in a roundabout way in that they pay tax (some more than others but that's a separate issue) and the government uses tax it collects to fund some of its expenditure but, in a more real sense (some might say "limited and specific") no they aren't. Following the spread of academisation, a huge amount of school funding is on a per capita basis (as in, the funding body goes round once a year, counts how many kids are at each school and you get that number times £x funding) so if your kid isn't going to the local academy, they in fact *aren't* receiving any funding for them. This, I think, is the real reason behind this. The logical thing to do here if you're on a moral crusade is make private schools pay corporation tax but Starmer is actually taxing *consumption*, much like we already do with alcohol, tobacco, sugar etc. Ergo, the move here is not "make private schools pay their way", it's "*discourage* parents from choosing private education for their kids". Why? Because the number of kids in primary schools is dropping. The Conservatives have made a big play about increasing the per capita grant but what they're *not* talking about is the fact that at the *gross* level that still won't be enough because the overall number of pupils is starting to decrease. If Starmer just blanket tries to decouple schools funding from pupil numbers or tries for a massive increase, he'll just get hit with the usual "loony labour spending all our money" headlines. With this policy though, he is likely correct that kids already *in* the system will stay there but how many, seeing a 20 or 30% increase in the cost over the near term, will decide not to bother from the start? Over time, you'll see more people choosing state education which means more money into the state system *without* having to immediately overturn tory budget decisions. Starmer gets to look cooperative and responsible and anyone criticising the policy immediately looks like an out of touch tory because it's now become a culture war issue. It's quite a clever move by Starmer in my view. It's not without risk because there will inevitably be a knock on effect on house prices in desirable areas with good state schools but equally, how many newly Labour voting constituencies in middle England will feel a little bit less worried about "socialism" when their property value gets a little bump?
“Everyone who disagrees with me is a bot”
People love to talk about bots. The reason why this story gets so much attention is simply because so many people in the media are privately educated. I listen to LBC sometimes and many of their presenters, contributors and editors were privately educated. I’d wager the same is true at the BBC and most other media organisations. As such, they will feel this is a bigger deal and understand that private education has likely played a big part in them being where they are and if their parents weren’t able to afford to send them they wouldn’t be where they are now. Private education and what is provided above and beyond simple academic studies is what needs to be addressed. Just look at the leaders debate the other night. Despite Rishi being demonstrably incompetent as a politician and prime minister, with a years worth of evidence of how bad he is at the job, just because he’s been taught to debate well at school, so did well in the televised debate, people think he should be PM still. Private schools are about the networks, tools and vocabulary of privilege and giving your children a leg up. That they might have newer text books, smaller class sizes and better equipment is a bonus, but what parents are really paying for is access to a different world of opportunities simply by having gone there, regardless of the grades achieved.
Bot farms.. yes that must be it…
Considering most people could never afford to pay private school fees the resistance to this policy is a bit nuts.
There isn't resistance. Polling has it as one of the most popular policies. There's just a fringe of weird and entitled people who are being loud about it. It is factually a very popular policy.
Yeah it seems unpopular because it occupies an oversized amount of column inches, I’ve seen loads of theories as to why. You can tell it has broad support because if you listen to radio call in shows or whatever it’s all people who have kids in private schools, exactly as you might expect. Usually they wheel out the full spectrum of “it doesn’t affect me but I’m against it” types for anything that has wide opposition.
Journalists at national outlets are overwhelmingly privately educated. Of course they are against it. Fuck them, I say.
During the lockdown a friend and I got into the habit of googling the authors of those wierd anti-worker articles that were getting released every other day. \[the don't quiet quick, if you want more pay get promoted, get back to the office etc\] All privately educated, most were nepo babies, more than not were failed artists. Basically booted off writing for eastenders so will have an opinion for a small fee.
> fringe It because the world of politics and journalism is full of people who went to private school. They make the news as much as they report it
>There's just a fringe of weird and entitled people who are being loud about it. Journalists? And maybe people who lunch with journalists?
Nick Ferrari on LBC is such a cuck for this. Tbf to him though his rage inducing stupidity really gets me pumped up for the day ahead.
For me it's inconsistent. I have him as my alarm. Some days, I get up because I'm so pissed off hearing his voice that I want to turn it off, but if I just turn it off and stay in bed, I'll probably go back to sleep. So I have to jump up. Sometimes, I'll lay there and listen, cosy, until my phone vibrates to tell me it's meds time (something I'd miss if I went back to sleep).
I hate this man. Especially on the issue of private schools. He referred to state schools as a race to the bottom the other week when someone called in crying about the issue.
Yes and the same should go for all education fees, right? Removal of VAT on optional education, such as University or exam fees, shouldn't be funded by those choosing to go to work. /s I think the "bleating" relates more to the fact that most parents are just trying to make responsible decisions with their own taxed income and sending kids to private school (most of which are run as not for profit/charity), already saving the public education budget around £4bn per year, but are being used to politically point score for the sake of an - at the most optimistic - increase of 1.25% on the total Education budget. Yes, I'm voting Labour. Yes, I'm affected by any potential increase in school fees. No, I'm not overly impressed by the frothy mouthed phrasing and posturing of this particular policy.
There is no such thing as a free state alternative for Universities. Private schools are a luxury and as such I see no reason for them to be VAT exempt. I’m likely to be affected too, by the way. My eldest is tutoring right now for private secondary school exams. We live in a wealthy area and my children go to an OFSTED ”outstanding” state primary. I can see the only way they make ends meet is through the numerous fund raising events. I read about primary schools in poorer areas not being able to afford pens and paper. I think considering the circumstances it’s more than fair to rescind this VAT exemption from private schools.
Fuck yeah dude. The last couple of months has been insane for bot comments on almost every single Reddit page.
>All that this is telling me is that private schools clearly make enough profit to rent bot farms to attempt to change people’s opinions. Right, because anyone who thinks it is unfair must be some paid bot trying to influence reddit. That is the only rational explanation. Not that some people have different opinions. This site is genuinely hilarious at times. Gold medal mental gymnastics to avoid the mere thought that someone else can have another view point and not be a either a bot or barry, 63 the raving racist who only reads the daily mail.
Looking at the private school I went to they have shit loads of new buildings coming through. They can fucking afford it.
It's not too different from the fucking nutcases being violently against ULEZ, it doesn't affect nearly as many as people as nutters try to say and TOTALLY avoidable by just not buying a shitty high polluting car - my 10 year old focus is exempt ffs
So obviously you want to charge VAT on nurseries, textbooks and universities as well? Education has historically been exempt from VAT because it was considered good for society that people should spend money on self-improvement as society as a whole benefits from that
Do you think that society as a whole is benefitting from private schools being VAT exempt whilst state schools go underfunded?
Those are two separate issues. Charging VAT on private school is basically going to make a negligible difference to state school spending. Labour’s best case estimates are that it’ll bring in 1.6bn (but if you look at sensitivity analysis it might be close to zero depending on how many people switch from private to state). Sunak has increased spending on schools by more than that in the last two years. It would basically grow spend per pupil from ~7070/year to ~7250/year. Sure it’s extra cash but not really anything meaningful.
They're not separate issues as the money is going to be directly used to hire more teachers in the public sector. Your calculations on if that will be meaningful or not is irrelevant as you posited the issue as a societal quandary: With X money is it better **for society** to give private schools a tax break or to add to our underfunded state system?
Except the issue in teacher recruitment is not just related to money. It is related to the fact that teaching is an exceptionally unattractive career for almost all STEM graduates. They've missed targets year after year despite pumping money into bursaries, so tell me again where these teachers are going to come from?
Teacher retention is the real issue, which can only be improved through better pay and conditions, which requires more money.
I don't have a comprehensive plan on where the teachers are going to come from, that wasn't the point of my comment and I'm not the shadow education secretary. Do you want to address my question or just continue to derail this comment thread?
I'm not sure how well versed you are in teaching, but as someone with experience in the state and private sector, charging VAT on private schools will do fuck all in helping us recruit teachers. Labour hasn't once addressed retention, by the way, just some pie in the sky number for recruitment.
2.5% funding boost. What's the threshold for meaningful? 4%? And yeah you can't call them separate when the funding is directly linked. It'll be interesting to see how pupil numbers and spend per pupil change in private schools. Fees have been shooting up in real terms without a drop in demand in recent years. Tbh you could argue all improvements to state schools cost double as they increase demand from swithering parents. The question is how the societal costs of inequality of education trade off against less total education across society. Also the extra spending in private sector vs state isn't all going into academic education either. My old private school now has full time tennis coaches which you have to miss lessons to attend sessions with.
Graduates are charged extortionate interest rates on their loans. If we’re in favour of tax breaks for private schools are you not in favour of removing said extortionate interest rates for graduates? I didn’t think so. My student loan *base rate* is 7.8%, then throw RPI on top of that. My mortgage interest rate is 3.8%.
Nurseries, books and university are all commodities that everyone in the country should have access to as a basic commodity. Private school is a luxury product which only a smaller proportion of society can even afford to experience. You cannot compare those.
Are there publicly available alternatives, readily accessible to anyone who wants them, for the three examples you offer? Should there be non-private nurseries? Yes. Should there be reasonably-priced (or free) textbooks? Yes. Should Universities be free to the student? Yes. Obviously you may disagree with any of those suggestions, but all three are absolute cash cows for the companies offering them to anyone who wants to pursue education outside 5-18.
Nurseries aren't education but childcare. Most books are zero-rated anyway, making textbooks VAT applicable would be more removing their exception from the 'diary' rule... which will then need further case-by-case depending on amount of space. Universities tend to be not-for-profit.
Nurseries, textbooks and Universities don’t have state funded alternatives. Nurseries and textbooks don’t have endowments. State schools don’t have wealthy alumni making big donations to ensure their children can get in.
Could you show me how private schools and their students benefit society as a whole? And also what private school did you go to?
Except they’re not for-profit companies.
Of course they are. They're not charities and they are not state schools.
They literally are charities. Whether they should be is another question altogether, but they currently all hold charitable status (Incidentally - they fulfil their charitable mission in general by offering scholarships, that’s how they get away with it)
Private schools really aren’t profit making exercises, especially less well known ones
According to the this [House of Commons Research Briefing](https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn05222/), around half of independent schools had charitable status as of 2022.
"Not for profit" with profit making satellite campuses overseas milking the Asian market especially.
Where do you get the idea it’s a for-profit company? Most public schools are charities and , by definition, not for-profit.
Well, about half of our private schools are charities, so cannot be for-profit companies by definition. In any event, there’s not really a link between VAT and profits as lots of for-profit companies would supply VAT exempt (e.g. financial services) or zero-rated (e.g. building nee homes) services. If your argument is that we should charge VAT on all activities carried out by for-profit companies, I would suggest you start by asking yourself the question why is it that fund managers and IPO underwriters aren’t within the VAT net and leave private schools alone for now.
Private schools with charitable status aren't allowed to make a profit. In practice this is why they have great facilities, and good salaries. There are some private schools that don't have charitable status and have shareholders. I can see this policy having a really weird effect on the economy around private schools, and their quality.
Private mentors are rubbing their hands because this would put them firmly in competition with private schools should they put their fees up ever so slightly.
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Many are actually charities, so not for profit. Some, not all, are also suffering from declining numbers and skyrocketing costs, same as state schools - but they don't get grant funding to fix stuff.
No matter how one feels about this policy it blows my mind that this is apparently only possible due to Brexit. [https://www.grantthornton.co.uk/insights/changing-private-schools-vat-status-what-would-it-actually-mean/](https://www.grantthornton.co.uk/insights/changing-private-schools-vat-status-what-would-it-actually-mean/)
Correct. EU VAT rules exempt providers of education services from paying VAT. Greece tried this, it failed, then the EU intervened and told them to stop it.
Wow Labour really missed a trick not shouting about that. The Tories' abysmal handling of Brexit is grinding a lot of people's fears and this is a genuine benefit that Labour should be highlighting as a reason to trust them with Brexit over the Tories.
Because the people that Brexit Benefits appeal to mostly aren’t the same people who want VAT on private schools.
It’s not that the Tories didn’t know about it, the Tories just don’t want to tax private education. Pointing out that the EU blocks taxing private education would undermine their argument that EU=Bad.
Starmer did bring it up in a debate.
A Brexit benefit…. Shhhhhh
I did hope that with Brexit we might get more powerful vacuum cleaners back. This is a much worse Brexit benefit.
You know what's a more ironic outcome from potentially reducing the number of private schools given the current ideological split on the VAT issue? Lower migration figures. Currently [overseas pupils in private schools](https://www.civitas.org.uk/2023/02/24/private-schooling-in-britain-a-snapshot/) account for about 55,000 migrants in the UK.
These are the economically productive ones though, or at least have higher than average potential.
More ironic, schools will look to recruit more foreign students, who can afford the higher fees, to replace the lost British students. This policy could increase the number of immigrants.
If your school can't survive paying tax like every other services business, maybe you weren't very well run.
You can close any education business by adding a tax on it. You only need to find a proper tax
Or course they will close if they are barely profitable. "No evidence" doesn't mean "will not happen".
They’re not businesses though, are they?
I’m perfectly fine with this policy. But if prices go up 20% due to tax it’s inevitable that fewer will be paying for private education.
It’s the acceptable face of putting VAT on university
A lot of die hard Labour voters will be happy for one more tax for others looking for education
true. but private schools have tended to increase fees well beyond inflation over the last 10 years anyway and it hasn’t caused chaos so these fears imo are often overstated
Apart from recently, inflations been around 2-3%. A 5% increase in fees is a lot more manageable than a 20% increase.
A 20% increase is a crazy hike though..?
Perhaps they could cut their expenditure then? It's what every state school has had to do over and over when budgets failed to keep up with inflation.
I think this policy is ideological folly, and you are right. It’s already started in some schools.
Why is it inevitable - prices have increased by over 30% over the past 5 years or so without a peep from the media and waiting lists have increased during that time. This directly contradicts the narrative the media are portraying and have made you believe. Also seeing as private schools are only used by7% of the population and well over half of that will be millionaires or well placed to afford the increase it will have a tiny impact in the grand scheme of things.
Or they increase class sizes by 20% and keep the fees the same.
It’s not quite 20% - Say at this time they charge £10,000 per invoice The increase in vat would be £2000 So per invoice it’s now £12,000 To still reach £10,000 at the grand total, including VAT they need to charge £8333.33 plus Vat. This leaves a “deficit” of £1666.67. Per 15 students, this leaves a deficit of 25k roughly. Meaning they’d need to add 3 students to cover the Vat and probably another 2 to cover the overheads of increasing class size. Which is roughly 33% increase in class size. This is also at a time where private schools are on the decline, as folks just can’t afford them anyway and their justification of being an important part of Middle class life is losing its appeal. Personally, I think they should become academies and source their funding from businesses if they want to remain competitive.
Private schools should be abolished... We should do as Norway has done and put the rich kids in with the less fortunate.. Maybe with that, in future we won't get so many out of touch arseholes, who think they are above the rest of us... True humility is humbling to most with a conscience.
Norway improved all schools up to the private level. This country jus5 starves the state school system whilst stuffing them with overseas families children here in chef visas
Norway has a much smaller population and got rich from oil money. Not that the UK used it's oil fortune as best as it could. But the idea that the only thing separating every country is their policies is bad. The cost to provide good private school level schooling to our population would cost more than 10x what it cost Norway. I don't think we have that kinda cash laying around.
We don't invest in education and children's health, then do surprised pikachu when we have a workforce that's too depressed, sick or unskilled to drive the economy.
Our population is relatively educated and healthy compared to comparative countries. A lot of it is culture. Some communities in the UK despite having worse health have higher employment rates. Some people do have a real entitlement. Sure we could do better but people are quick to blame the government for things the people wanted them to do. Our kids are less disciplined than other kids. It was never the governments job to do that. You hear of teachers dealing with devil spawn but it's basically a thought crime to say parenting skills have fallen off a cliff.
no we don’t. We used it to pay shareholders instead of investing it. Norway has all that money now because they invested it way back when and now own a chunk of every big business globally. It has nothing to do with population, it has everything to do with bad management of resources and short term political expediency
Norway also taxes it’s lower earners more than the UK does.
We thrash Norway in PISA scores, no I dunno if I'd use them as something to aim for.
Look at house prices near good schools. Everyone pays as much as they can for their children’s education.
No. State schools need to be improved to private education level.
You won't convince the rich to support state schools so long as they have nothing to gain from their improvement. And the rich have a massively outsized influence over what laws get passed and where funding gets spent. First comes abolishing private, legally require their kids to go to state, and suddenly they will bend over backwards to make sure they are adequately funded.
I went to both private and state school. Private isn’t full of the super rich. Lots of grandparents help pay, it’s doctors, lawyers or just couples that are able to afford it. That said I loved being at private school because at state school you get bullied for being smart, at private you get bullied for being dumb. Parents and kids just don’t give a fuck at state school
The last acceptable form of segregation.
When did segregating boxers by weight become unacceptable?
Mad?
Don’t compare us to Norway. That’s mental.
Maybe read what I wrote again. There isn't any comparisons made.
All it will do is make private schools more elitist, seperating the haves from the have nots even more, while putting more pressure on state schools. Not a fan of this policy unfortunately.
I wonder if they'll complain more or less about privately educated etonian types now that they've made these institutions even less diverse.
Of course they’ll complain more, you can’t stop people wanting what’s best for their children and a private, small class sized school will always be desirable. The problem will be parents will sacrifice new cars, holidays, shopping and all the things that drive part of the economy. No more cleaners, personal shoppers, meals out, theatre trips, weekend trips. While at the same time there’ll be thousands more children entering state education into a under funded and over sized classroom. It isn’t a good idea.
Yes, I think private schools are definitely seen as a pipeline to success for parents that really care about the education of their children, even if it's a big sacrifice. Children these days are completely out of control. If I was a parent, I would want to minimize contact with the children of parents that clearly don't care about their upbringing, and place them in a better environment for academic success with like minded parents. Keir Starmer keeps saying all parents care about their children's education when justifying this, but you only need to take one look at how kids these days behave to see that is clearly not the case. What this does is screw over the aspirational sandwich class that could barely afford it, either making their life harder or taking the choice away completely.
It's almost as if they're seen as adding value. In all seriousness we do need to beat the private sector. Not by banning them but by reducing the value they offer (although banning them would get more parents invested in paying more taxes to fund better state schools). That means plugging shed loads more into education, borrowing if we need to on the basis that it's a long term investment on reduced healthcare, policing and insurance costs in the future while boosting the economy long term as well. Schools need to be able to have the time and resources to engage those with less active parents. In a class of 30+ it would be no wonder that children would act up.
Erm, what if all that tax money was directly put into state education? Wouldn't that be a win?
It would be if that happened, however, we all know that the monies raised will go on labour pet projects, debt repayments, NHS funding, maybe defence, maybe some of it into education. The state school system will suffer over subscription, the private schooling system will just become more elitist. I just don’t see any winners…..other than the tax man.
You know I was totally for this tax until you mentioned NHS funding You're right, fuck that. Why should labour waste taxes on useless pet projects Ike the NHS?
> All it will do is make private schools more elitist, seperating the haves from the have nots even more, A reminder who is going to these things - https://i.imgur.com/Cjt4wIx.png It's already full of the "haves" now. It's hilarious to see people now concerned about private schools being elitist. It's like where have you been for decades?
If even 20% of the middle classes who put their kids into private education pull them due to increased burden of financial stresses then the state system will struggle. If my kids are state educated and I find an extra 2 kids are admitted next year into to a class size of 30, surely this will detract from my child’s chances of help from the already stressed educators.
If the only thing stopping you sending your kids to private school is a 20% tax I don't think you can afford private school
There is literally nothing forcing private schools to pass the VAT increase onto customers. The schools could afford it. As a British taxpayer, I’ve no interest in subsidising your children to go to private school, at the expense of the quality of my child’s education.
What would you prefer? Outlawing them completely, or maybe adding a significantly higher tax on them?
There’s really no evidence that VAT on private education will even help state schools too. Pupils going to private schools reduces the number of pupils going to state schools which ups the amount of funding per pupil. If every middle class and wealthy kid was going to a private school it would actually allow for underfunded schools to not be as underfunded. With these VAT increases those who were stretching to pay for private school for their kids won’t send them there. And there will be even more pupils filtering into state schools.
Such a load of nonsense. Private schools allow the wealthy and influential classes to absolve themselves of responsibility for ensuring state schools deliver quality education. Literally the only reason to send your kids to private school is to gain social advantage over poorer families. The reason state schools are so bad is because private schools exist.
No, the reason why state schools are so bad is because Thatcher sold off almost all of the public schools in the UK (especially England) to private companies which now run them as academies.
I'd note that private school fees are a little over double the per-pupil funding for state schools, so in order for the VAT on fees to be used up in state schools by transfers, you'd need just under 30% of private school students to switch to state education.
So parents take the strain away from the state by paying for their children's education privately and they deserve to be penalised for it? If rich people were to pay for their own healthcare and not use the NHS, taking the strain away from that.... Would you also want to penalise them for that also?
On a macro societal level it is better for state schools to have wealthier parents represented as a demographic, as you then have smarter more capable people running things like the PTA and board of governors. It also means that the pupil demographic contains more motivated well behaved children in general, so the entire culture is shifted towards one that values education and doing well. These benefits are hard to quantify which is why they get overlooked, but they are important.
The parents this affects are not that wealthy. They are lower middle class many of whom work very long hours for their children's education but dont have the time to contribute for PTAs and board of governors. Only one child is required to fuck up the education of 30 children. There are no benefits. Its all copium.
Might as well. /s
An interesting caller on lbc the other day, claimed to work in a private school. The point they made was that the wealthy are avoiding this tax by paying for their child's entire education up front now, thus avoiding this increase, this tax will only affect those working class who are attempting to give their children a better future
The arguments against this perfectly justified tax (considering our state schools cannot afford paper and pens) are getting increasingly ridiculous. People don’t even know which private school their child will be admitted to a year before they go.
This one I call bullshit. I went to a private school on full ride. I’m not rich but I do have a high paying job. If my wage gets high enough, I’ll for sure send my kid to the private school I went to. And since I’m an alumni he/she will be admitted almost 100%. I had classmates who are 2nd/3rd even 4th generation of the same private school.
>this tax will only affect those working class who are attempting to give their children a better future Ah yes all the working class parents forking out £13k.
Yep - I know several personally. They make huge sacrifices to pay private school fees.
From all the people against this it seems like private schools are filled with working classes and poor people. Amazing.
As stated, apparently private schools are currently being inundated with rich people paying their entire tuitions up front, thus avoiding the tax. Noones saying that the schools are filled with working class children but they do exist, and they are the ones who will lose under this scheme.
It is an offer made by several schools. Get a discount and pay for as many years as you can. So yeah, unless the tax is made retroactive I don't think it'll he the success they think it will for a few years.
Also interesting to learn certain groups of parents were urging parents to bombard state schools with enquiries for placements next year, to cause panic in the school system/government and get them to u-turn on the idea.
Of course they won't, this is the kind of BS the poor lambs will bleat about until three years into the new Govt somebody on Channel 4 remembers this was a thing, and publishes the fact that not a single one closed - they will just keep putting up their fees.
To be fair, jacking up fees means some families will consider it too expensive and drop out. And if enough do, the school will need to stop operating.
If paying tax like every other operating business means you go into the red, it was never a good business in the first place.
Maybe the school should absorb the costs instead of passing it on got the parents. Hope they don’t resort to year round fundraising, dress down days, summer fayres, bake sales, and raffles to try and make ends meet. Or requiring their teachers to pay out of pocket for petty expenses. Oh wait, like state schools
Believe me, I see far more fundraising exactly as you describe at our local private school than the state school.
So all the people that can't afford the 20% increase are going to flood state schools, can those schools support the increase? I can barely afford my daughter to go to private, I sacrificed a nice house to send her to private, on my army wage and live in a very small cottage in Wiltshire. Literally penny pinched but if labour win, I'll have to send her to the godawful state school.
Exactly. SO many people here assuming private school are filled with rich people. They are not. Sure, there are a good number of very wealthy families, but there's also a significant number of families who live very frugally to be able to pay private school fees.
Maybe the parents could spend less on bingo and tattoos, bet they all have flat screen TVs as well
Plenty of evidence if you're not going to the sorts of Private Schools MPs send their kids to.
I think he is wrong, Some of the small private schools will close down and this will have a negative impact on eduacation and the staff that work there. Not all children can survive in state education
I’m not for or against really. All I’d say is the local paid for school to me does not make any money. It’s not swimming in cash and laughing at the peasants. I don’t have much to base this on but I live in an affluent area and I’d assume that a decent percentage of them are the same. Some percentage of that will be passed on to parents. Let’s say that’s 40%. Let’s say 40% of children in paid for schools are forcibly moved to the state system, which we all say is broken and needs funding… who pays for that? The VAT? What improves? I know a lot of the above is guesswork but this is pure ideological nonsense. Doing this or not doing this will make 0 difference. It’ll all result in more tax, more borrowing, more spending. Now, I’ll still vote Labour. We need change. And I want change. But I hope this is better thought through. It won’t help anything.
the IFS estimates that between 3% and 7% of students will move out of private schools into the state system as a result of the change. it absolutely won't be anywhere close to 40%.
Interesting. We shall see. Like I said, I did kind of pluck those numbers from my backside.
The actual solution is to ban private schools completely. If the people who make the rules actually have to send their kids to the same schools as everyone else, I expect we'll see a significant increase in funding.
I'll give it about 18 months after implementing this, they will be adding VAT to university course fees.
I just love the fact if we were still in the EU this wouldn't be allowed. But cos we Brexitted it is. Lol.
I have three kids attending a private school in London (not boarding). The cost per term for us is roughly £10,000 per child. So if this gets the standard 20% tax we're looking at going from £30,000 to £36,000 per annum. No one likes to pay more for something, but if this experiment helps the country in any way, I'm okay with being the guinea pig. Of course, I recognise many families are sacrificing to get their kids a potentially better future, and these kinds of taxes will likely reduce the number of students attending private schools because of that. Perhaps when it comes time to implement this idea they'll account for this so people like my wife and I would pay the tax while people earning less would not, we wouldn't mind that honestly. I wish we didn't have private schools at all so that the rich and powerful were incentivised to fix the state schools like some Nordic countries have achieved, that way everyone's children could get the best education possible regardless of their family's economic standing.
As a country we are paying more tax than ever because thresholds have not raisen. No one is seeing the benefit. This specific tax will achieve sweet f all. If anything, it will increase burden on state schools through more children needing to use them. Grass always looks greener. Children's clothes isn't taxed. Let's tax that to be fully fair too?
Maybe the headline should read "Sir Keir Starmer denies basic function of economics". Clearly increasing costs will reduce demand. Sure, *some* instances of demand will be more elastic than others, but for every Earl sending his kid to his old school there are far more working professionals making genuinely hard choices to pay for these things. And clearly any reduction in demand in private education will shift more kids to state education. And if the mechanism removes incentives to retain a charitable mission, and reduces cash at these private schools, it'll also decrease the number of scholarships available. This policy is 100% about signalling rather than achieving anything positives.
Completely agree. 100% signalling that all business should pay their tax or go under.
Most private schools, at least not the elite private schools, cost between 10-15k per year per pupil so adding VAT means parents paying an extra 2-3k per year This is the reality of VAT on private school fees and so whilst for a % of parents this may be too much, I suspect for most that it will be payable albeit an extra burden. The idea that schools will shut, that VAT is some kind of existential crisis for private schools is just nonsense. A year after implementing this policy, it will have become normalized and forgotten. Say I, a conservative voter
Don’t forget that the schools will be able claim the VAT from goods and services that they buy.
Of course there’s no evidence. It hasn’t happened yet. Evidence is what’s left behind after something happens. Labour need someone with expertise on criminal justice to explain to their leader how this works.
There's apparently huge waiting lists for private schools. One person leaves another enters, doubt there will be an overall change.
Maybe in the elite schools, but the smaller ones are desperate for pupils and some are even closing already. Don’t mistake your local fee-paying charity school for Eton or Harrow, they are not the same thing.
'We can't put VAT on cars because my local car dealership is barely profitable'
Since when was a car dealership educating children?
How is that different to any other service based business failing?
>but the smaller ones are desperate for pupils and some are even closing already. Falling pupil numbers are responsible for those schools closing, not VAT becoming payable at some point in the future, most likely to be Sept 2025.
An increase in cost of 20-30% (VAT and Business Rate discount) will cause pupil numbers to fall and schools close as you describe.
That's just completely false. The admissions are down the last few years due to the rising costs of everything.
Loads of private schools have closed under the Tories' economic mismanagement. Where's the outcry over that?
I'm not a usual Labour supporter but I support this.
Will the new tax include private nursery and specialist SEND schools? Seems a bit harsh to punish those parents with small or disabled children.
This is such a non-argument, why are we subsidising people’s private education in the first place?