Labour’s private school tax blow

Labour has been sticking to its net zero approach while ditching or watering down other policies, which it thinks will antagonise the voters it needs to win across this year. But one policy being pursued relentlessly by Labour is the imposition of VAT on private school fees. 

Sir Keir Starmer knows if he is to placate Left-wing misgivings over the party’s abandonment of other socialist nostrums, he must provide some red meat. This takes the form of yet another Labour attack on educational excellence to follow up its near destruction of the grammar schools. 

Imposing VAT at 20 per cent and removing exemptions on business rates will jeopardise the future of many independent schools, especially smaller institutions unable to charge the fees of their larger brethren. Labour’s suggestion that schools can make savings to absorb the VAT rather than pass it on in fees is clearly disingenuous.

As we report today, a campaign is under way spearheaded by parents anxious to puncture the myth that these schools are the preserve of the super-wealthy. More than 50,000 people have signed a petition urging Labour to drop the policy.
Many of these schools are attended by the children of middle-class professionals who are already sacrificing much to pay fees that Labour would place beyond their affordability. This could force as many as 40,000 pupils into an already overstretched state sector.

Labour denies its policy is “an attack on private schools” but it is hard to see it as anything else. More than that, it is an assault on the aspirations of Middle England, whose votes the party is trying to win by claiming it is prepared to lower their taxes. By their actions shall they be judged.