Double good news for Education Not Taxation campaign
Terrific debate in Parliament with honourable mentions to Conservative and Lib Dem MPs; Parents' petition against taxing education reaches 100k
Two pieces of good news today: an an excellent debate in Parliament and an update on the petition. I’m really optimistic. I would ask everyone to sign the petition and ask friends and family … and children if they have an email address…to do the same.
Debate in Parliament
Conservative and Lib Dem MPs lined up to express their disapproval of Labour’s policy. Andrew Lewer and others spoke well. It’s well worth reading the transcript (10-15 minutes); highlights below:
More than 600,000 children are educated in the independent schools sector in the UK, saving UK taxpayers more than £4 billion each year because those pupils are not educated in the state sector. In addition, the independent sector has a total economic footprint that amounts to £16.5 billion, supporting 328,000 jobs and £5.1 billion in tax revenue.
It is also a fundamental principle that we do not tax the supply of education, and the Value Added Tax Act 1994 exempts education, including nurseries and universities, alongside independent schools. That principle is international in scope and the UK would be an outlier if Labour abandoned that policy. For example, EU nations, Australia and the USA do not apply sales taxes to education.
My hon. Friend’s point leads me nicely into my belief that the naivety of Labour’s position is underlined by a hidden agenda to have smaller schools in the midlands and the north closed and absorbed by the state. Underlining that is perhaps the fact that the shadow Education Secretary, since taking up her post in 2021, has not visited an independent school with at least the aim or willingness to discuss the impact of her policy.
I also like Munira Wilson’s (Lib Dem) remarks:
Let me be clear: we do not support ending the VAT exemption for independent schools, for the very simple reason that we do not support taxing education. As we have already heard, all education provided by an eligible body, including university education, music lessons and tutoring sessions, are exempt from VAT, and we would not want VAT or any other tax to be charged on any of these things.
As we have heard, many independent schools are not the Etons, the Winchesters or the Harrows; many are small schools with fewer than 400 pupils. We should all aspire to make the best investment we can in education and to make every school as good as possible. Taxing education is not the way to achieve that goal.
The transcript is worth reading (10-15 minutes) not least because you can see what Labour’s Helen Hayes has to say in defence. They are 100% reliant on the Institute for Fiscal Studies claim that the policy will raise £1.3bn (it seems they’ve already backtracked on the expectation of £1.7bn); as readers know, Mr Chips thinks that report is bunkum. They want to talk non-stop about how they’re going to improve schooling for the 93%….but feel no obligation to account for the consequences for the economy, let alone to explain why taxing education is the right way to go about improving education.
Petition update
Tony’s petition hit 100k signatures over the weekend. Please sign if you haven’t already…and please also ask extended family members to sign. Your children can sign too, all it takes is an email address.
If anyone’s in any doubt who this policy will affect, the comments on the petition site are well worth a read, for example:
From “Sam Taggett”
I work in a state school with over 30 in a class and oversubscribed. My 2 kids went or go to private schools and we have sacrificed loads to do this. We are NOT wealthy, many of the kids at the school I work at live in bigger houses and have much more disposable income than we do. We chose to send our kids to private school rather than live in a bigger house instead of our semi detached on a main road.
From “Stella Mungavin”
We applied to 5 maintained schools when our eldest child was starting Reception. Although we are in the catchment area for all 5, we didn’t get a place anywhere so were somewhat forced into the private system. We pay for school fees out of income that is already heavily taxed, in addition to which we aren’t draining the system because our children don’t attend state schools. Apart from the economic benefit to the state, we are freeing up much-needed spaces for other families. Many people who send their children to private school aren’t ‘rich’ and even if they are, when did that become a crime.
From “Sunil Rasal”
And then politicians wonder why we cannot produce great results and our productivity is hitting the floor. All Labour policies are geared towards dragging the aspirational people to new lows and ensuring they do not have any way to grow. If you look at India and China you will realise they have great economies today, because they have invested heavily in education and have let private education flourish so that there are multiple tiers of private education that the commoners can afford
As Sunil says, it’s not clear the anti-private-school crowd really believe they’ll raise £1.6bn, or even that they care if they don’t. What they want is the bright-red socialist dream of all children in state schools, which will be of the “highest quality” just like…everything that a socialist state has ever produced.