VAT on private school fees will bring immediate cash injection into state schools - Susan Dalgety

Scottish Labour calculate that VAT on private school fees will proved an extra £150 million a year

Critics of the new Labour government’s proposal say that it will create chaos in the independent sector, forcing parents to withdraw their children and place them in state schools.

And a spokesperson for Fettes, one of Edinburgh’s most prestigious private schools, insists the policy is “very regrettable” and suggests it will have a damaging impact on parents who “make many sacrifices” to send their children to independent schools.

Let’s be clear what we are talking about here. I am sure that among the thousands of parents in Edinburgh who use the city’s flourishing private sector, there are a few who make really serious sacrifices to secure Jack or Lily a place in the school of their choosing.

But for the majority, the new VAT charge will probably mean they will have to delay buying a new Range Rover for a year, or consider downsizing their summer holiday to a week’s all-inclusive package on a Greek island resort instead of a three-week sailing holiday on the Med.

Parents who send their children to a fee-paying school, which cost on average £15,000 a year per child, are not short of a bob or two. There are many parents across our city trying to raise a family on not much more than £15,000 year.

Private schools offer so much more than a good education. They provide a child with privilege, an entry into a middle-class world, where their alma mater will open doors for them decades after they have left. And because of its very exclusiveness, a private education gives most pupils a certain type of self-confidence, some would say a sense of superiority, compared to their peers who have to survive the rough and tumble of state comprehensives.

There is even recent research that suggests children who go to private school have better health when they reach middle-age. In an ideal world, no parent would be able to buy privilege and status for their child, but the reality is that here in Edinburgh, a quarter of parents do exactly that.

Scottish Labour calculate that VAT on private school fees will proved an extra £150 million a year, money that should be spent on teachers for Scotland’s hard-pressed public sector. Labour leader Anas Sarwar, who himself sends his children to private school, says VAT on school fees is the “proportionate thing to do, so that we can give an immediate cash injection into state schools”.

It is also the right thing to do. Our public services, particularly health and education, are crumbling after more than a decade of neglect and poor policy choices by both the Tories in Westminster and the SNP at Holyrood. Over the coming years, I am sure that all of us will be asked to make tough choices to help get our country back on its feet, to build a better future for our children and grandchildren. Asking those with the deepest pockets to make a bigger contribution is only fair.