Consultation on Legislation for the Taxation Of Education - let your MP know what you think
Labour have put the accelerator down on Corbyn's Education Tax, and never mind the collateral damage. Please write to your MP - some guidance attached below
Yesterday the Government published draft legislation for the creation of a very odd tax anomaly for the UK’s independent education sector. This is a very short note encouraging people to write to your MPs with your thoughts. Templates attached at the bottom.
I say it’s “very odd”, noting that pretty much everything else in education remains exempt; they are only taxing the bit that saves the taxpayer £4-6bn a year. Other people thinking it’s “very odd” are:
anyone who was taught at A-level about merit goods and positive externalities, which Arthur Pigou advised us to subsidise, not tax
all mainstream economists including the 2/3 of those surveyed in 2006 who support school choice via vouchers, effectively the opposite of an Education Tax
some governments that go as far as subsidising education including those well-known Thatcherite extremists in Sweden, Denmark, Australia and Chile
every government in the world, ever, except the Greek Marxists who caused general mayhem with their short-lived Education Tax experiment in 2015
Bad timing
We’re particularly concerned about the timeframe, with the tax due to be applied to January’s fees. That means if you can’t afford the fees (plus tax), you have a month (from yesterday’s announcement) to find an unfunded, possibly non-existent, free taxpayer-funded school place, if you fancy giving your school a term’s notice thus not incurring January’s fees (plus tax) in full. I shouldn’t think cash-strapped schools are going to give parents much quarter on that one.
In fact, it’s a rather particular month, given most people working in schools are not working. Because it’s the school holidays. So if you fancy a look around a school, or a chat with the Head, or a conversation about availability of subjects….forget it. Sign up blind, because that’s how much the UK officially values you and your past tax contributions towards the education of others. This from Bournemouth
We wholly reject the claim that “we’ve had plenty of warning” about Corbyn’s Education Tax since…well, it featured in that Communist’s Manifesto twice and lost two elections. We shouldn’t have to make our plans based on the proposals of an Opposition Party, until they are government policy, which didn’t officially happen until the King’s Speech. Then, government policy should take account of all costs and benefits, and that includes how it is implemented as well as what it is. So even if it was a great idea to tax education, which it’s not, the government should allow an appropriate period for schools and families to prepare.
That’s why most of the rumour-mongers including Labour insiders were saying, pre-election, the tax would apply from September 2025. I mean, of course families make their school/job/house decisions with an eye on decades, not weeks, but at least that timetable was going to give folks a year to adjust and find an unfunded school place, if required, and maybe give some state schools time to expand too.
My conclusion is Reeves and Phillipson want to take advantage of “stickiness” in the school/child/family relationship to force even those people unable/unwilling to pay the tax, to pay the tax for a term or two. Which is disgusting and we’ll be arguing contravenes their obligations under the Children Act and UN Convention on Rights of Children.
The Education Not Taxation Campaign will respond in full to the consultation, and we don’t particularly encourage a deluge of responses from parents because (1) we risk diluting what will hopefully be our carefully-crafted evidence-based submission (2) submissions may be public, and even if not there is a risk they are leaked….and there is a risk of a less-than-sympathetic portrayal of an angry response taken out of context.
That said, we DO want as many people as possible writing to MPs and so we’ve produced a couple of documents to help. First, here’s our guidance on what sort of letter might be effective.
Second, here’s a 2-page attachment that we’d like to land in every MP’s inbox multiple times. Please include it and refer to it in your letter.
Thanks for your support, please share widely.
Hi!
The current 'cost-benefit' conversation seems to be trading off VAT raised with cost of extra places for kids in state schools. It seem to be ignoring any long term benefits of private education... (probably because the benefits don't arise within the required 5 or 10 years which the treasury uses)
But - if we are trying to account for this all properly then this seems to be like the biggest effect to be considering (i.e. does private education result in greater tax paid to the state in 30 years time?)
I don't know of any good research here but if any existed I assume it have an effect an order of magnitude bigger than all the effects we're currently arguing about.
Cheers
here this has all the info needed to keep labour in the courts
https://ukhumanrightsblog.com/2019/10/03/abolishing-private-schools-and-redistributing-their-assets-social-justice-at-the-expense-of-human-rights/