The Government might be able to ignore my request for a meeting to discuss their disastrous decision to impose VAT on independent school fees, but they won’t be able to ignore my Westminster Hall debate.
I warned at the election, and I’ve been proven right already, that this policy will level down education for all children no matter which school they attend.
As I set out the case for Labour to scrap this policy, I want to make clear that everything I say below I say as someone who was proudly educated in local state schools where I grew up in Worcestershire. I want all children to succeed, no matter their background or what school they went to.
I want to live in a country where people can exercise choice, and that includes exercising choice in our education system.
Sadly, I’ve already been made aware of parents who have had that choice ripped away from them by this Labour Government.
Parents in my constituency have had to pull their children out of independent schools in Bromsgrove because of the Government’s decision to impose VAT on fees. These children will now have to find places in state schools, increasing class sizes which this Government doesn’t seem to care about it, nor do they seem to have a plan to address the ramifications of their policy.
This policy will have an acute impact on my constituency which has three independent schools. One of them, Bromsgrove School, employs more than 600 local people. So not only could this policy affect the viability of independent schools in my constituency, but it could also lead to job losses.
The well-respected think tank, the Adam Smith Institute, has said that applying VAT on independent school fees could raise no money at all, and in fact could cost the Treasury £1.6 billion.
I have a lot of respect for the Institute for Fiscal Studies, but, as the Adam Smith Institute highlights, the IFS’ own findings that applying VAT to independent school fees will raise £1.3 – £1.5 billion is based on evidence they themselves acknowledge to be ‘thin’ and ‘sparse.’
Under the IFS’ optimistic scenario, only a limited number of parents will no longer be able to afford fees and will move their children to the state sector. But the Adam Smith Institute’s research shows that there’s a reasonable chance that many more children will have to move to state schools. And this is born out by what I’m seeing in my constituency.
It therefore begs the question, why is Labour fixated on pursuing this destructive policy? The answer is simple, they’re driven by purely ideological motivations, with no thought given to the impact their policy will have on the wider education system. How will making class sizes bigger in our state schools improve the quality of education for your child? It just won’t and worried parents know this.
It might make Labour feel better that they’re sticking it to independent schools by acting as puritanical idealogues, but what they fail to realise is that not all independent schools are the equivalent of Eton and Harrow. I’m sure these are the schools that often spring to people’s minds when they think about independent schools.
But the reality is, most parents who send their children to private schools make huge sacrifices to do so. They’re not the elite or incredibly well off, they’re hard working people who scrape everything together to send their child to their local independent school. These parents are now being punished by this Government which is making the fees unaffordable.
I will be raising the concerns of local parents at my Westminster Hall debate on Tuesday, October 8th where a Government Minister will be forced to respond and to justify their decision to impose VAT on fees.
If you’re a parent whose child will impacted by this policy, then do write to your MP and encourage them to attend my debate.
Together, let’s stop this class war nonsense and prevent the UK from becoming the only Western nation to tax education.
Together, let’s enable hardworking families to be able to exercise choice in the education system.
There’s still time for Labour to scrap this damaging policy which will diminish the quality of state education and level down education standards across the board.
Labour should ditch its’ idealogical plans to levy VAT on public schools
