Labour’s ‘politics of envy’ is wrecking private education, with 77 schools shutting their doors since Keir Starmer’s tax-grabbing VAT bombshell was announced.
CP
The controversial move – slapping a 20 per cent VAT charge on private school fees – came into force on January 1, and the fallout has been brutal. Parents struggling with soaring costs, headteachers forced to shut up shop, and state schools bracing for a flood of new pupils they just can’t handle.
Among the first casualties was St Joseph’s Prep School in Stoke-on-Trent, which closed just before the tax hike kicked in. Roisin Maguire, the school’s headteacher for 12 years, said parents “simply could not manage an extra 20 per cent” on fees – and warned that more schools would follow.
The closures aren’t just hitting England – schools in Scotland are also collapsing under the pressure. Cedars School in Greenock shut in September, calling the VAT charge the “straw that broke the camel’s back.” Kilgraston School in Perthshire – Scotland’s only Catholic boarding school – also went under last August, blaming falling pupil numbers and the punishing new tax.
And it’s not stopping there. Eight more schools are set to shut by the end of the school year, with headteachers pointing the finger directly at VAT. St Hilda’s Prep School for Girls in Hertfordshire, where ex-Home Secretary Suella Braverman once studied, has warned it could close this summer.
As reported in the Telegraph, a letter to parents at St Hilda’s laid it all out: “Coupled with falling pupil numbers, the school is also facing significant financial challenges, including the implementation of VAT on school fees from January 2025, the increase in employer National Insurance contributions, and the removal of 80 per cent business rates relief from April 2025.”
Labour, though, is standing by its tax raid. A government spokesman said: “Ending tax breaks for private schools will help fund public services, including supporting the 94 per cent of children in state schools to achieve and thrive.”
But that’s not how it’s playing out. Treasury figures suggest 37,000 fewer kids will be in private schools in the long run – a 6 per cent drop – as cash-strapped parents are forced to pull them out. Where will they go? Straight into already overwhelmed state schools.
Even some Labour MPs are now backtracking. Rupa Huq, MP for Ealing Central and Acton, suggested the policy could be reversed, admitting: “Could there be, when this growth comes… a way of undoing it or something?”
The Independent Schools Council (ISC) has launched a High Court battle, arguing that Labour’s plan tramples on children’s rights. A judicial review is set for April 1-3, and experts warn the damage is only just beginning.
Shadow Schools Minister Neil O’Brien blasted the move, saying: “Every independent school that is forced to close by this punitive measure represents more pupils that will need to be found places in state schools, many of which will struggle to accommodate them. Fewer parents will get their first choice of state school as a result.”
And it’s not just classrooms at risk – special needs education is under threat too. “There are 130,000 children with special needs being educated in the independent sector at present. If thousands of them are taxed into the state sector, that will put a lot of pressure on special needs provision in the state sector,” O’Brien warned.
And it’s about to get worse. From next month, the Government will strip charitable private schools of their business rates relief, forcing them to pay full rates for the first time. That means more closures, more disruption, and more pressure on an already stretched system.
While elite institutions like Eton College will survive, smaller schools are being crushed. Parents, pupils, and teachers are paying the price for Labour’s “ideological attack” – and it’s only the beginning.
READ: ‘Dear Keir Starmer, Your VAT on Private Schools Has Ruined My Life,’ says 14-year-old Ella
This article (POLITICS OF ENVY: 77 private schools now closed since Labour’s tax-grabbing VAT bombshell announced) was created and published by Conservative Post and is republished here under “Fair Use” with attribution to the author CP
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