IDEOLOGICAL SPITE: Labour’s VAT raid on private schools is motivated by spite. Contrary to Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson’s claim that it is all about *'leveling the playing field', the policy has been exposed for what it really is: an ideologically driven assault on aspiration - and something done by only TWO OTHER COUNTRIES in Europe. (*an aim of Stalin & Pol Pot, too)

Rachel Reeves, forged ahead with the plan despite being warned by her own civil servants that it would harm poorer families. 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.

SEND CHILDREN (children with Special Educational Needs, many of whom are entitled to additional government funding to help them access tailored educational support.) 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 exposed in court is that the Government has no idea how many SEND pupils will flood state schools as a result of its policy.

Labour argues 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, fewer 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.

DEVASTATING EFFECTS: 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 and support staff redundant
• freezing recruitment
• cutting improvement and investment budgets
• cutting bursaries and scholarships (intended, ironically, to help pupils from more disadvantaged backgrounds)

IT'S GOING TO GET WORSE: From this month, independent schools will also lose their 80% 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.

LABOUR LIES: The Government’s claim that this policy will raise £1.8 billion a year to fund 6,500 more state school teachers is also a LIE. 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 the new recruits will not bring down the pupil- to-teacher ratio, which has risen from 16.4 to 16.8 in the past five years.

TIMING: This 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 (AND of course THE FAMILIES AFFECTED) to get ready. According to court documents, civil servants told the Chancellor that a start date of September 2025 start would present the “least disruptive” option, but she went with January ANYway. Children at schools having to close have had their teenage education severely disrupted mid-stream while intolerable stress and misery have been placed on them and their families. STALINIST IDEOLOGY matters more than caring about individuals.

TEACHER VACANCIES: These have hit 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.

Yet the Government appears intent on making even more teachers redundant. Schools in oversubscribed areas are 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 leveling up – it’s leveling down.

"EVERY CHILD MATTERS" - but clearly not to Labour: Socialists such as Phillipson insist that “every child matters” while actively discriminating against private school pupils. Where’s the support for their mental health? For their human rights? For FREEDOM of CHOICE?

THE BOTTOM LINE: The Chancellor’s sister Ellie Reeves is chairman of the Labour Party. When asked on the Meet The MPs podcast in 2019 she was asked: "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.” Angela Rayner is also on record as saying something similar - which surprises nobody. She also said: "We will FORCE local councils to take their full share of migrants." Labour is all about FORCING people to do things.

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.