The fate of private schools isn’t one that readily tugs the nation’s heartstrings – most people don’t send their kids there and the associations with the Saltburn classes of ultra-privilege and social arrogance are deeply knitted into their reputation.
Their products are not always on the best display in politics, where a lot of the ambitious alumni fit the chummy, clubbable retro-image. So you can understand why Keir Starmer’s Labour, seeking a subject to rally spirits around, should alight on a VAT hit on the private education sector. Complainants are accused of “pleading poverty” (Wes Streeting). Angela Rayner thinks they are a “waste of money” and that kids can do just as well at the local comprehensive (although that this rather depends on where and what your local comprehensive is).
Reality checks contradict this upbeat view. Lots of parents (the trailblazing Diane Abbott sent her son to one of the swankier London private day schools) simply don’t find their local state alternative a reassuring enough prospect to take the one-shot chance on their children’s education.
Labour’s VAT hit is understandable in the round – private schools are a service and most discretionary services attract this tax. Major public schools can absorb it from the network and foreign wealth that funds them – and if they are struggling with their business model, they could always cut back on the more luxurious facilities they are using to attract the international rich, or rent out their swimming pools.
But there is no such thing as a free tax hit and there are also inconvenient truths Labour is ducking in this argument. The first is that all “privates” are not the same. Lower-cost ones often cater to gaps – either where good-quality education is scarce or fewer state schools are within an easily accessible distance.
They also absorb some of the pupils that state schools struggle to provide for – the Downham prep school in Norfolk is a prime example of the kind of set-up which credibly says it will not survive the 20 per cent VAT hike and which keeps a third of its places for special needs children with autism and other social and emotional complexities. Where does Labour propose they go – given that this is exactly the areas in which state schools struggle to fund and staff facilities?
My own background is fully state-educated and I have found that professional milieus dominated by too many cliquey private school alums tend to an irksome self-satisfaction and group think. But being allergic to an overdose of public school folk doesn’t make clumsy policy a sound one – and Labour should make more distinction in the size of the schools it is targeting and take account of those who offer clearly useful social services. They are often a very different profile to the elite Etons, Harrows and Westminster Schools Labour is tilting at.
The other alarm bell which will ring here is that Starmer is himself keen to offset the more dour egalitarian strains in Labour by saying that his “user one mission” is wealth creation. It’s going to come as quite a shock then that many parents who get richer start to be attracted to private education.
There’s a bit of a habit in the party of declaring itself comfortable with people getting rich and then being sniffy about their choices. Life is complex. Starmer himself attended Reigate Grammar, an excellent selective school (Labour is against creating more of these) and had his sixth-form fees paid by the local authority when it turned private. Many senior Labour figures down the years opted for private provision when the going got tough for their children (Abbott argued that her son was a black child in the inner city with a hard-working single mum and his school “was the making of him”). In one sense, it is “indefensible” as she admitted. Back on Planet Real though, many people would understand her view.
There are lots of circumstances whereby children end up in the private sector, apart from the tradition and snobbery. Otherwise, despite the national figure of around 7 per cent of pupils in private education, there would not be the demand for private sixth forms and the urban skew of private schools (around 15 per cent of the school population in London and 25-30 per cent in Edinburgh).
So a Labour government will see a backlash in communities where the many private schools without famous names find themselves short. There are no easy answers for Labour, but I think it will also regret a frankly lazy schools policy of simply promising to add 6,500 secondary school teachers in “key subjects” when the scale of the recruitment and retention pressure are already immense and there is no clear plan or resourcing to deliver on this.
Hitting private schools with VAT is a chunk of red meat thrown to the Labour grassroots. But even acknowledging that it is not unreasonable for expensive, privileged institutions to contribute more to the broader well-being, this is a blunt and counter-productive cudgel. If the schools close – and this indiscriminate approach will hit those with lower margins far more than the ones catering to the upper classes – pupils have to go somewhere. So the “saving” to the Treasury on VAT (tiny in the scheme of public finance), will end up pushing an extra cost on the state sector, which can barely resource schools in staffing terms as it is.
The other awkward truth for Labour’s better-off supporters, including their own front bench ranks, is that they can move houses or “gentrify” areas with the best state schools, so are paying a premium for education through their property choices. That is not the case for many parents scrabbling to afford the lower end of school fees. It’s a bumper-sticker policy for a much more serious question – which is, what does Labour really want to do to consolidate educational opportunity and by what means? A hard one. Much easier to bash the private schools, in the hope that we won’t press the question.
Anne McElvoy is executive editor at POLITICO and hosts the Power Play podcast
