Thomas Wilson is a student at Cardiff University and a researcher at the Senedd
The idea of eternal return was configured by the philosopher Fredrich Nietzsche. The idea is that everything is destined to perpetually reoccur in the individual’s life an infinite number of times.
When it comes to the reoccurring debate on the tax status of private schools, there is no doubt many of us feel it is our very own example in our lives as being indicative of Nietzsche’s eternal return. The debate surrounding the tax status of independent schools is not a new concept configured in the think tanks comprised of the 21st century Labour Party’s brightest and best, but a constant reoccurring presence on frontline British politics.
Amongst the first to raise questions around the charitable status of public schools in the Commons was Phillip Snowden – a convert to the Independent Labour Party soon after their inaugural meeting of 1893. Three years after his election as an MP for Blackburn, Snowden demanded a root and branch inquiry into the funding of public schools, singling out both Eton College and Winchester in his speech, which were categorised as charities under the Charitable Trusts Act.
However, it would be incorrect to suggest holding concerns over the taxation status of private schools is a position exclusive to left-wing firebrands, such as Phillip Snowden. After all, Michael Gove scribed a piece in the Times, back in 2017, entitled; “Put VAT on school fees and soak the rich,” with the article making the case for the taxation of fee-paying schools.
It is worth noting that Gove himself attended Robert Gordon’s College – a private school situated in Aberdeen. Whether or not Gove’s parents, one a lab assistant and the other an owner of a fish-processing business, would have been able to afford the rise in fees, the consequence of taxes on such schools, is, unfortunately, unknown and open to ponderance.
Part of the reason why debates around private schools often prove so emotive is that, to many, such schools are representative of an aspect of Britain deemed to be unpalatable; with public schools perceived to be case studies in the rigidness of preexisting class structures, steeped in arcane and archaic practices; be they the tails and top hats of Eton, or the system of ‘fagging’, in which younger pupils act as servants to their older peers.
Fortunately, both for the image of our great educational institutions and the well-being of pupils, Eton scrapped the wearing of top hats as part of the uniform in 1948, largely due to the post-war rationing of silk, and the system of ‘fagging’ has been consigned to history after being slowly banned over the 20th century, including by the filmmaker Richard Curtis; who banned the practice as a head of house during his time at Harrow.
Despite the emotiveness surrounding the debate, when rationally assessed the conclusion is simple; taxing private schools is a counter-intuitive assault on educational standards. Bridget Phillipson, the Education Secretary, has stated that the policy aims to act as a catalyst for “driving high standards in our state schools,” but the policy is set to have precisely the opposite effect, as the Independent Schools Council has reported a decrease of 10,000 pupils attending public schools due to the fears held by parents that they will be unable to raise the extra capital that will be required to pay increased school fees.
After being confronted by the stark reality of the student exodus, the ISC has estimated that the overall cost to the Department for Education is over £92 million; money which could have been utilised by Phillipson to improve facilities, recruit teachers, and ultimately improve standards in public sector education, which Phillipson supposedly wants to do. Unfortunately, they have chosen the wrong course of action, for policy should never be built upon a bedrock of misconceptions and baseless animosity, as the decision to charge VAT on private school fees undoubtedly is.
Not only will the flagship policy serve to further overstretch the public sector by outpricing parents and sending countless more pupils into the sector, with even Eton College increasing fees by twenty per cent, the Association of Taxation Technicians has lambasted the proposed implementation date of the 1st January, with the ATT stating; “We are concerned that neither HMRC nor private schools will be ready to implement the change in VAT liability effectively with a commencement date of 1 January 2025. As there is no tax information or impact note or published guidance, we recommend the implementation delayed accordingly.”
The plan to tax private schools is therefore being met with widespread opposition. This includes trade unionists, with the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers demanding a “more reasonable time frame is proposed in order to implement the change fairly,” with the union raising concerns over potential school closures, job losses, and disruption to pupils. When it comes to the issue of school closures, seemingly unbeknownst to many, they have shamefully already begun; be they the Alton School in Hampshire , who dubbed the threat of VAT on fees the “final nail in the coffin,” or the St Joseph’s Preparatory School in Staffordshire, who also cited the introduction of VAT on fees as the key factor behind closure.
As a result of just these two closures alone, approximately four hundred and forty pupils will now have to scramble for places in the already-oversubscribed public sector. In light of the projection by the Institute for Fiscal Studies, which estimated that over 40,000 children will be pushed into the public sector at a cost of £300 million a year, the evidence would suggest that the situation in education may further deteriorate, if the plans are carried through by Labour.
Milton Friedman once wrote of how freedom was threatened from two directions; the evil men in the Kremlin, and the “internal threat coming from men of good intentions and good will who wish to reform us.” Labour’s plan falls firmly into the second category. The very fact is that those with sufficient income to privately educate their offspring ought to have the freedom to do so, and ought not to be blocked from doing so as a result of government policy.
Swamping the public sector of education with predominantly middle-class children will serve to disproportionally regress the grades of our working classes, for unlike their middle-class counterparts who will be able to enjoy costly support such as tutoring, they will simply be left behind in overfilled classrooms.
Taxing private schools will not produce an equilibrium of educational outcomes for all children of all social classes, it will prove to be a disaster.
