(Photograph: Reading Tom from Reading, UK, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons)
Labour’s plan for private schools is an iniquitous and vindictive proposal; a thinly veiled start to the abolition of the independent sector. It is also an attack on freedom of choice in Education.
It will be the first time ever that education will be taxed in the UK, as it has always been regarded as a “common good”. In other words, education in all its forms is a benefit to everyone.
Keir Starmer’s policy claim that by charging 20% VAT Labour is correcting a subsidy, is based on a lie.
Parents pay nearly 7% of all taxes (except Council tax) towards education all their taxpaying lives, yet also pay school fees for their own children – saving the Exchequer the full cost of educating them; definitely a subsidy, but paid by private school parents to the government for which they see nothing in return.
To be equitable, VAT will need to be charged on all private tuition – ballet & dance schools, evening classes, music lessons, sports lessons, language schools etc. Equally, why not University fees?
What about overseas students, will independent education be the only industry that is forced to charge VAT on its export invoices?
In the interests of equity should those who could perfectly well afford to pay for independent education, but instead buy property in the catchment area of a good state school and educate their children at the taxpayer’s expense, not be expected to contribute more towards its cost?
Every child is different and some can’t be accommodated in the state sector. Why are parents to be penalized for trying to do the best for their children?
Military families are moved every two years and therefore frequently use boarding schools so that their children’s education is not continually disrupted, a 20% hike in the fees will make this a very difficult proposition out of incomes that have not kept pace with inflation.
The UK’s independent education sector is recognized around the world for its excellence and emulated in many countries from South Africa to China. Why does the Labour Party seek to destroy that which we should be proud of?
Labour claims that independent schools are elitist and only used by the rich. This is another lie, as the vast majority of families are far from rich and struggle to meet the cost. How does adding 20% to the cost of the fees widen access to these schools?
Many independent schools offer bursaries and scholarships to those who cannot afford the full cost. Some in Labour say that the VAT charged will be on the gross fees rather than the net, reducing the value of the bursary. This is completely different to the way VAT is charged on other commercial transactions and smacks of pure vindictiveness.
This policy is an attack on aspiration and the desire to do one’s best for one’s family.
Is it not hypocritical of a party made up of quite a number of privately educated politicians, who seek to deny others what they or their children have benefited from?
Why is it deemed by Labour an obvious good to educate one’s children at the taxpayer’s expense?
Why are those educating their children privately made to feel guilty for saving the state the cost of educating their children?
Do we not want to engender self-reliance in the population and encourage people to make their own decisions in life?
Why does Labour want to make us all dependent upon the state, and discourage us from doing our own thing?
Why does Labour seek to destroy and penalize what is good, rather than inspire even more people to take responsibility for their children’s future?
No party proposing such a policy deserves to be elected.
Instead of further penalizing aspirational families, we should be thanking parents for saving the state the cost of educating their children, and looking at ways to allow more parents to take advantage of independent education.
Alastair MacMillan runs White House Products Ltd, a manufacturer, distributor and exporter of hydraulic components to over 100 countries. He is a supporter of the Jobs Foundation.
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Taxing one purchase, and not another, lacks logic. Why is not every purchase taxed? Why pick on education? This tax will cost the government more than it will raise, as the number of children forced into state schools will be beyond current capacity – which vast immigration numbers has pushed to the limit.
Policy suggestion for the Reform party: make ALL education independent – give parents vouchers to spend where they will.
Surely, a state monopoly of child-care and belief in all its forms, perhaps run by someone as obviously civilised as Angela Rayner, is just what this, or any other, country needs?
This is an emotive issue, not helped by the fact that those like myself that didn’t benefit from private education because their parents couldn’t afford it (and weren’t sufficiently aware of scholarship schemes) plus have in due course never earned a high enough wage themselves to consider private education as a viable option (not all intelligent children can get scholarships) don’t see this issue as anything except typical socialist posturing.
The bigger issue is surely the whole topic of taxation, the iniquity, sheer number of different taxes plus the unnecessary complications that the system engenders – not even Reform is likely to tackle this. No common sense is ever applied to basics.