22-05-2025
Labour should reverse VAT raid on private schools — not scoff at parents
Since acquiring power, Labour has extracted much rhetorical mileage out of its professed commitment to be levying no further taxes on 'working people'. But its 20 per cent VAT tax raid on independent schools amounts to just that. The disingenuous manner in which the government defended its attack on private education traded heavily on the stereotype that fee-paying families would effortlessly absorb the hit to their finances. The full cost of which, they argued, would anyway be internalised by the schools themselves, which could simply cut back on non-vital expenditure or dip into their financial reserves.
Predictably enough, a mere six months after first coming into force mid-way through the financial year, the policy has proved far more damaging than Labour's optimistic projections suggested. Though
