Poll finds 62% back Labour’s plan to scrap tax breaks for private schools
Voters back Labour’s plan to scrap tax breaks for private schools, a poll has revealed.
Keir Starmer wants to remove the charitable status of the elite institutions, which means parents don’t pay VAT on fees.
But Rishi Sunak and his Cabinet, crammed full of privately-educated Tories, have rejected the move.
A survey, conducted for the Mirror by Redfield and Wilton, found there is overwhelming support for the idea amongst the public.
Almost two thirds (62%) believe that private schools should be stripped of their charitable status.
(
Getty Images)
The perk means they are exempt from charging VAT. In England and Wales, they also get at least 80% relief on business rates.
Shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson last night said: “This polling proves that Labour is on the side of families and working people who want to see the highest possible standards in state schools.
“If Rishi Sunak care about fairness, he would listen to voters and end private schools’ tax breaks, instead of defending the indefensible,.
“By ending private schools’ tax breaks, Labour will deliver high standards for every child investing the money in more teachers, professional careers advice and mental health support across our state schools.”
Labour has said it would use the £1.7billion that would be raised from scrapping the tax perks to improve the state education system.
At Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday, Mr Starmer called for an “end to the Tory scandal” of the exemptions.
The Labour leader took aim at Mr Sunak’s old private school and asked why it receives “taxpayers’ money”.
He also pointed out that Levelling Up Secretary Michael Gove had previously called for private schools to lose their charitable status.
“Winchester College has a rowing club, a rifle club, an extensive art collection, they charge over £45,000 a year in fees,” Mr Starmer said.
“Why did he hand them nearly £6 million of taxpayers’ money this year in what his Levelling Up Secretary calls egregious state support?”
The Mirror revealed yesterday that private schools attended by members of the Cabinet avoided charging £65million in VAT on their fees last year due to their charitable status.
Labour analysis of accounts submitted to the Charity Commission found gross fee income received by elite schools amounted to more then £329m in 2021.
This left more than £65m in uncollected VAT.
Redfield and Wilton interviewed 1,500 adults in Britain online on November 30.
… As Tory claim there would be exodus of pupils is debunked
By JOHN STEVENS
Tory claims that scrapping tax breaks for private schools would lead to a mass exodus of pupils into the state system have been debunked.
Ministers have argued that Labour’s plan to charge VAT on fees would force schools to close their doors.
But figures show that despite a massive increase in the cost of private education in the past decade, the number of pupils paying for tuition has not fallen.
Net private school fees rose from £11,000 in 2009/10 to £13,700 in 2019/20, a real-terms increase of 23%, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies.
At the same time, the number of pupils in private schools in England has remained steady at around 560,000 to 570,000.
Tory minister Paul Scully has claimed “a load of schools” will be forced to close if they are stripped of their charitable status.
“Frankly, if you take VAT off private schools now without the thought about how you model behaviour change, you will see a load of schools close, you’ll see people taking their children out of independent schools,” he told Sky News on Wednesday.
“It won’t be Winchester, Harrow, Eton, those kinds of big elite schools that everybody always thinks about. It’ll be the middle of the road schools, especially prep schools, and those people will have to go into state education.”