One day, politics students will study this farrago as an object lesson in self-defeating policymaking
Daily Telegraph
We always suspected that Labour’s VAT raid on private schools was motivated by spite. One term in and the vindictiveness of this tax grab is now plain to see.
Contrary to Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson’s claim that it is all about levelling the playing field, the policy has been exposed for what it really is: an ideologically driven assault on aspiration.
And before the left leaps on my privately educated past – I speak as the mother of three children, one of whom attends a state school.
This week, we learned two facts that confirm slapping a 20 per cent levy on school fees was not done with children’s best interests at heart.
The High Court learned that the Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, forged ahead with the plan despite being warned by her own civil servants that it would harm poorer families.
As Lord Pannick, the KC representing private schools suing the Government over the scheme, pointed out, the Treasury knew that a quarter of families set to be hit by the tax were below the average wealth level. But they imposed it anyway.
Children with special educational needs (SEND) were not adequately taken into account, either.
In October, Ms Phillipson boasted: “This is a mission-driven Government and to fulfil our mission to break down the barriers to opportunity for every child, we must address SEND. I am determined to do that. Labour will build a system where every child is able to achieve and thrive.”
The truth, again exposed in court this week, is that the Government has no idea how many SEND pupils will flood state schools as a result of its policy.
Although Labour has been willing to admit that up to 35,000 private school children could be forced out by increased fees because of the tax, which came into force on January 1, ministers have not put a figure on the proportion with SEND – many of whom are entitled to additional government funding to help them access tailored educational support.
Labour likes to argue that it is supporting SEND children by exempting those with a council-funded education, health and care plans (EHCP) from paying the VAT.
The trouble is that of the 100,000 SEND pupils who attend a private school, less than 8,000 have an EHCP. Indeed, by Phillipson’s own admission, the EHCP system is in complete disarray, with significant backlogs.
So as a consequence of this policy the state sector is not only having to cope with an influx of private school pupils, but an increase in the number of SEND children now requiring state support.
It’s a double whammy. And it’s only about to get worse. According to Department for Education statistics, 77 private schools and independent specialist schools in England have shut down since it was revealed in October 2023 that Labour would apply VAT to fees within its first year of power. Private schools who have managed to stay afloat have done so by either making teachers redundant, freezing recruitment, or cutting bursaries and scholarships (intended, ironically, to help pupils from more disadvantaged backgrounds).
From this month, independent schools will also lose their 80 per cent charitable business rates relief, adding a further cost of up to £1,000 per pupil per year for schools with large grounds, forcing yet more children into the state sector.
Schools which aren’t forced to close altogether may have to resort to flogging off playing fields to reduce their rateable value. These are the same playing fields that hockey-playing Phillipson argues should be shared with state school pupils.
The Government’s claim that this ill thought out policy will raise £1.8 billion a year to fund 6,500 more state school teachers has also suffered a reality check since its imposition.
There are around 30,000 state schools in England and Wales - so 6,500 teachers amounts to just one new teacher for every four schools. Moreover, if 35,000 extra pupils do end up joining state school registers then it’s not as if the new recruits are going to bring down the pupil to teacher ratio, which has risen from 16.4 to 16.8 in the past five years.
The timing couldn’t be worse for either sector. Again, Reeves was warned that hitting private schools with VAT from January would be the “most disruptive” option for pupils and local authorities, and would allow little time for schools to get ready. According to court documents seen by the Telegraph, civil servants advised the Chancellor that a start date of April would mean “fewer errors and more time for schools to consider how to manage additional costs”. They said a September 2025 start would present the “least disruptive” option, but she went with January.
The move has also coincided with teacher vacancy rates hitting an all time high in England. More than six teaching posts in every 1,000 were left unfilled last year, according to the National Foundation for Education Research (NFER), double the vacancy rate recorded before the Covid pandemic in 2020 and six times higher than the NFER’s first measure of vacancies in 2010.
And yet the Government appears intent on making even more teachers redundant. We are now in the perverse situation of schools in oversubscribed areas being required to add extra classes without being given any more funding. That means state schools are having to teach more pupils and create more teaching space without any extra money to do so, eroding the quality of education for all. This isn’t levelling up – it’s levelling down.
Socialists like Phillipson insist “every child matters” while actively discriminating against private school pupils. Where’s the support for their mental health? Where’s the respect for their human rights?
The Chancellor’s sister Ellie Reeves gives us an idea of what the Government is thinking. The 44-year-old, who is chairman of the Labour Party, was asked on the Meet The MPs podcast in 2019: ‘If you were prime minister for the day without any repercussions, what would you do?’ She replied: “Abolish private schools because I think they divide communities.”
In 2023, the Reeves sisters gave an interview to the New Statesman in which the Chancellor declared that private school parents are “snobs”. That’s what this is really about: class warfare, waged by jumped up comprehensive kids who made it to Oxford… under Thatcher, whose assisted places scheme allowing academically able students from poorer backgrounds to attend private schools was abolished by Labour in 1997.
And who has Labour got to defend this Marxist dogma in the High Court? Four barristers who are all privately educated.
One day, politics students will study this farrago as an object lesson in self-defeating policymaking.