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Labour’s flagship policy, adding VAT to private school tuition fees, is supported by more than half of voters, but not because they believe the funds will be raised.
Party strategists are likely to keep the plan at the heart of their general election selling point, despite an internal party dispute over how the policy would affect public schools.
Shadow justice secretary Emily Thornberry argued that state schools would have to absorb rising numbers of pupils as a result of parents pulling their children out of private education, but Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer insisted that was a “wrong”.
The debate was met with ridicule from Conservatives, who accused their rivals of initiating a “politics of jealousy and a tax on ambition”.
Labour Party officials argue that the policy remains popular with voters. I This shows that 57 percent of the public supports the idea, with only 15 percent opposed.
Polling by the independent think tank More in Common has found that a majority of voters back Labour’s plans, with 45% of those who voted for the Conservatives in 2019 also backing the policy.
And most people believe that taking their children out of private school and into a comprehensive is a price worth paying.
However, there is also skepticism about the impact of changing VAT rules on the economy, with only 26% of voters confident that there will be a net benefit.
Luke Trill, from More in Common, said: “As we approach the publication of the general election manifesto, Labour’s policy of imposing VAT on private school fees has consistently been one of the party’s most popular policies and is supported by the majority of the public.
“But despite the policy’s popularity with voters, most voters are still not convinced that the money raised by this policy would outweigh the additional costs of educating more children in public schools.”
“Every poll we’ve seen shows this is a popular policy and people know we stand for significant investment in public schools,” a party source said.
“Instead, support for the policy appears to be based not on economic benefit but on the public’s belief that tax cuts for private schools are unfair.”
The policy would force private schools to charge VAT on tuition fees – a 20% rise if the full cost was passed on to parents – and require them to pay business rates, raising £1.6 billion a year which Labour would use to boost funding for state schools and childcare in England.
Mr Starmer and shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson are understood to be focused on avoiding the “class war” narrative by reassuring private education parents that they are not being criticised by Labour.
“Lots of parents will want to send their children to private schools and I have no problem with that,” Starmer said during a visit to a primary school on Monday.
Asked whether the tax could come into effect as early as this autumn’s new academic year, the Opposition Leader replied: “When we come to power we will set out all of this in our first budget.”
The budget is widely expected to be announced in September or October.
Asked about the move at Nursery Hill Primary School in Nuneaton, Warwickshire, Mr Starmer said VAT levied on private school fees would be enough to fund Labour’s childcare policies and also to employ 6,500 new teachers.
“This is a really important policy because, as any parent with young children will tell you, we really need childcare centers and daycare centers,” he said.
He rejected Mr Thornberry’s suggestion that state schools would have to accommodate an influx of new students as a result of the fees policy, saying: “We have had an analysis done by the IFS. [Institute for Fiscal Studies] They say the impact of this will be minimal.
“So we’re very confident on that front.” The IFS predicts that if VAT was imposed on tuition fees and schools only had to increase their spending slightly, fewer than 7% of children currently in private schools would transfer to public schools.”
Education Secretary Gillian Keegan said: “Yesterday, Labour acknowledged that higher private school taxation would inevitably lead to ‘class widening’ in state schools.”
“This is a view shared by people in both government and the private sector. Labour are not just punishing hard-working parents with a £2,094 tax increase; they are punishing children and lowering education standards with a politics of envy and taxation of ambition.”
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