Labour’s plans to impose 20 per cent VAT on private school fees are causing much brouhaha. The Tories, well-heeled parents and heads cry, “It’s not fair” or “The schools will not survive” and the Independent Schools Council warns that their pupil numbers are falling. Yet, recent Department for Education figures show that there are 24,150 more children enrolled than there were in 2020-2021 and 12 new private schools opened in 2023.
(The ISC protests that those figures apply only to England.) To me if feels like simulated concern and organised project fear. While this dispute distracts the nation, the 93 per cent of British pupils in state education are barely mentioned.
What a dereliction of duty. Once again the few matter more than the many. Admittedly, Sir Keir Starmer has pledged to recruit 6,500 more teachers, but that one policy cannot reverse the damage done over 14 years.
Last July, in a speech at Mid Kent College, Starmer promised to “tear down the barriers to opportunity that hold this country and its people back” and vowed “to fight – at every stage, for every child – the pernicious idea that background equals destiny”. That was then. Starmer today, for fear of being branded a socialist, tends to avoid such talk of equality now.
At this point I must make a declaration. My children went to private secondary schools. First, because I suffered from the same immigrant febrility and delusions of Rishi Sunak’s parents – thinking we could buy the.
