A majority of the parliamentarians that make up the pro-Palestinian “Independent Alliance” have voted to oppose the government’s plan to levy VAT on independent schools.
Four out of five members of the grouping backed a Conservative Party opposition motion in a commons division on Tuesday afternoon, prompting derision from Labour MPs.
Shockat Adam, Adnan Hussain, Ayoub Khan and Iqbal Mohamed all voted in favour of the Tory motion. Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, the grouping’s final and most senior member, was recorded by commons officials to have abstained.
The Conservative motion, which called on ministers to publish a full impact assessment to show the effects of the planned reforms on independent schools and the state sector, was rejected by 363 to 190 — a majority of 173. That is despite Liberal Democrat, Independent Alliance and Reform UK MPs roundly backing it.
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The Independent Alliance caucus was formed last month, uniting non-party affiliated MPs elected on pro-Palestinian platforms in July.
In a joint statement, published at the time of their formation, the collective vowed “to provide hope in a parliament of despair”.
They added: “Millions of people are crying out for a real alternative to austerity, inequality and war — and their voices deserve to be heard. As individuals we were voted by our constituents to represent their concerns in parliament on these matters, and more, and we believe that as a collective group we can carry on doing this with greater effect.”
Speaking in the House of Commons on Tuesday, group member Iqbal Mohamed described Labour’s plan to levy VAT on independent schools as “hugely damaging.”
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Mohamed said: “State schools in my constituency are bursting at the seams. There are no spare spaces to move into for the more than 1,000 children being educated in independent schools there. The fees charged by those independent schools are a quarter to half of the cost of state school provision per pupil”.
Addressing a Westminster Hall debate on Tuesday morning, Mohamed’s fellow Independent Alliance MP, Ayoub Khan, insisted the plan “does not stack up financially.”
“In Birmingham Perry Barr”, he said, “there is an all-girls faith school where parents earning just above minimum wage secure places for their children. We already have an enormous problem in the constituency with the secondary school sector, where waiting lists are somewhere in the region of 100 places.”
Meanwhile, Adnan Hussain, the MP for Blackburn, highlighted the implications of Labour’s plans for faith schools and those schools serving students with special educational needs.
He told the House of Commons in the afternoon debate: “The policy threatens the viability of many independent schools that have charitable status and serve deprived communities, including many independent schools in Blackburn, such as faith schools and those schools serving children with special educational needs.
“This policy will put those schools on their knees and vastly increase the number of spaces that will be required in public schools. In Blackburn, we do not have those spaces.”
Responding to the comments of Mohamed and Hussain, Labour MP Josh Fenton-Glynn described their support for the Conservative motion as “surreal.”
“Why on earth is the MP for Dewsbury [Mohamed] standing up for the 7% of children at private schools not the 93% in state schools”, Fenton-Glynn said in a post to X/Twitter.
He added: “Now Adnan Hussain (Independent MP for Blackburn) has also intervened in the debate to support private schools at the expense of state school students. I like Blackburn, they need an MP who’ll stand up for the 93% of their population who don’t go to private school.”
Josh Self is Editor of Politics.co.uk, follow him on X/Twitter here.
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