Local people have been speaking with prospective MP for Cities of London & Westminster Tim Barnes about Labour's plans to introduce VAT on school fees. Tim explains,
"One of the issues that's come up on the doorstep this evening has been people questioning the policy proposed by Labour to introduce 20% VAT on school fees in private education.
"And I wanted just to cover that in a little bit more depth than a simple yes or no or support or pro against any one particular policy, and explain why I think that policy matters.
"The numbers might not seem that big.
"After all, only about 6% of young people are in school in England today are in private education.
"But that's not a number that's distributed evenly across the country.
"So in a seat like Cities of London and Westminster, the numbers actually grow to be pretty big.
"We have about 20,000 young people learning in the state-maintained sector, and one estimate suggests that about 25% of parents of those in the independent sector would be put off the idea of keeping their kids in private education if this fee was introduced.
"Now, that would mean about 3,000 young people being pushed from the private sector into the state-maintained sector.
"And 3,000 on top of 20,000 is a pretty big increase.
"And despite the fact that in recent years we've had extra capacity in our school system, 3,000 would be enough to push it beyond what we have today, and it would push the number and cost of supporting the children that we already have in our state-maintained sector up.
"Simply put, the VAT charge on independent schools would cost us more to educate the children we already have and that we would have in the state-maintained schools that we have.
"So it's not a scheme that's going to be a vast improvement on what we have now or raise huge amounts of money for the Treasury.
"Indeed, Paul Johnson of the IFS has said that in the grand context of national budgets, this really isn't a significant money-raising scheme whatsoever.
"It's more about whether or not you think it's a social good.
"Now, I don't think it's a social good.
"I think it's a tax on aspiration.
"It's a tax on people who, if they'd like to, would be able to send their kids to private schools.
"One survey carried out by Public First has suggested that about 80% of the population believes that if people want to pay for their children's education, they should be free to do so.
"And about half of those surveyed said they would send their kids to a fee-paying school if they could.
"And yet, all of those individuals are going to find it harder if Labour introduces VAT.
"So it's not really doing anything to help, balance the books.
"It's not really doing anything to help the kids who are currently in the state maintain schools.
"In fact, it'll actually probably make their resources per pupil lower than it is today.
"It is about trying to make a political statement rather than one that's just about what's best for our children.
"No country in Europe has a tax like this on education, and I don't believe that we should be the first.
"We should really be concentrating on what's best for all of the young people that we have in our school system, and keeping as many of those as possible in private education.
"In a way, that means that additional resources - limited resources - such as we have within the state can be spent on the ones who are there. That must surely be the best thing.
"This is really about what's best for our young people and that is not allowing VAT on private school fees."
