The Politics of Envy?

A response to every argument against VAT on private school fees

Clifton College, a private school in Bristol

The upcoming election is not going to be a battle of big policy ideas. Labour are well aware that all the Tories have left is fear of the alternative, so are trying to give them as little ammunition as possible. We are told their manifesto will be ultra-safe.

A rare exception is their proposal to put VAT on private school fees, which, as a result, is going to keep getting a lot of airtime. It’s one of very few topics where Labour are willing to play to the fears of right-wing media, knowing that they have the public comfortably on side. A recent YouGov poll found it was supported by 62% of the population versus 21% who opposed. For Conservative voters the figures were 54% support versus 30% oppose. So it draws the Tories into defending something even their own supporters dislike, and gives some point of difference for disgruntled core Labour voters fed up with their leadership’s caution. Plus it raises much needed money.

That Labour feel confident enough to push it, despite their broader “safety-first” approach, is testament to how marginalised private schools have become in recent decades. The percentage of pupils attending them has stayed flat throughout the postwar period at around 6%, but the massive expansion of higher education and the professions has meant their influence has radically diminished (though is still disproportionate). As Britain became more affluent over the decades the private sector chose to increase fees rather than expand capacity. It is now paying the price.  

My view is that the policy is worth doing. An extra £1.5 billion a year is not a huge sum but it is a meaningful one given finances are so constrained (I’ll get on to whether that is a reasonable assessment of how much it would raise). The public sector is in a dire state and, given Labour’s caution around raising taxes more widely, we will need what we can get. Nor is VAT a punitive tax. We pay it on most things, including essentials like clothing (for adults) and shower gel.

This doesn’t imply any criticism of parents who use private schools. We are hardwired to want to do the best for our children, and that can take many forms, from private tutoring or buying a house in a good catchment area, to helping them out with their homework or driving them to football games. This instinct is a good one, society wouldn’t function without it. Nor do I want to see private schools banned. Yes they do lead to more inequality but so do lots of things. Freedom matters as well as equity, and the right to choose a school for your child is an important one, so much so that it is enshrined in the European Convention on Human Rights. For me the policy is simply about raising a bit more money in a way that protects people on medium and low incomes.

Nevertheless, and despite public opinion, a large chunk of the media remain not just opposed, but horrified, running numerous campaigning articles on why it would be a dreadful idea (according to one Telegraph column last week it is the result of “pathological self-loathing” from privately educated lefties, which is odd as none of the senior Labour figures involved went to one).¹ Given how much more we’re going to have of this over the next year I thought it would be worth setting out the flaws in each of the standard arguments made against the policy. And in doing so look in more detail at how it will work and the implementation challenges Labour will have to consider.