The mother of an autistic girl who moved to a fee-paying school after struggling in a large state primary school is bringing the first legal test case against the Government’s plans to impose a 20% VAT charge on private education. The Sunday Times has more.
Alexis Quinn, 40, enrolled her daughter, Addison, at Rochester Independent College, Kent, after being told by staff at the local state secondary school that there was concern over whether it could meet the child’s needs when she started in Year 7.
Addison, now 12, had previously attended Herne Bay Junior School, a 470-pupil foundation school in Kent, where she was missing “10 to 20% of lessons” in classes of about 30 pupils after “becoming sad and anxious”, her mother said.
Since moving to Rochester College in September last year, she has “a new-found confidence”, her mother said. She does not have to wear school uniform, is in a class of about seven pupils, and one of her paintings has been exhibited at the Royal Academy’s Young Artists’ Summer Show.
Quinn, who works for a charity, said: “Because of the government’s proposed VAT change [which is due to take effect in January] we would have to move Addison from her private school in the middle of an academic year, because we can’t afford up to a 20% fee increase.
“In her primary school I was fearful of attendance fines and so I forced her into school, causing her additional trauma. The school tried its best but could not meet her needs. The state secondary school was three times bigger than the primary school, where already she could not cope.”
Rochester charges £16,800 a year for day pupils in Years 7-9, and Addison’s grandparents — a retired policeman and a former army veteran — are helping out. The fees rose 13% in September and are due to rise by up to 20% in January if VAT is imposed. …
Lawyers acting for Quinn say children with special educational needs (SEN) are being discriminated against by the VAT policy, which could price them out of schools that are meeting their needs, breaching their right to education under the European Convention on Human Rights.
She had applied to Kent county council in 2022 for an education, health and care (EHC) plan, which could have led to the council paying for extra support that Addison might need, but she was unsuccessful. Worried that her daughter’s mental health was worsening, Quinn decided not to embark on a lengthy appeal.
A pre-action letter putting the Government on notice of an intention to issue proceedings in the High Court, unless it withdraws its VAT plans, was sent to the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, on Friday.
Worth reading in full.
The Telegraph also has a story about Alexis Quinn’s legal action, as does the Mail.
You can contribute to Alexis Quinn’s fundraiser here.
Stop Press: Lord Forsyth, the former Secretary of State for Scotland, has written an excellent piece in the Telegraph setting out the case against imposing VAT on independent school fees.
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The very best of luck!
But you may not need it:
‘All interested in developing an informed and responsible debate on education should consult the current government guidance on Education and Vocational Training (VAT Notice 701/30). This document must be central to any informed debate on taxing educational provision.
The overarching principle set out in VAT Notice 701/30 is that “if school, higher or further education is being provided for a charge, the VAT consequences are for an eligible body”, but that “the education provided is exempt” as are “any ‘closely-related’ goods or services”. The point being is that Labour’s so-called tax break is not one about independent schools but is about the provision of educational services in general. I am a passionate believer in tax harmonization. This usually occurs between states but should also occur within states. Thus, removing the ‘tax break’ on one type of educational provision provided for a charge must naturally lead to the imposition of VAT on all forms of for charge educational provision. This means that VAT should be added to all university and further education fees.
There is a major problem here. Labour does not like ‘private schools’ and one could argue that this is one of the party’s ideologically derived blind spots. Across the EU, educational services are exempt from VAT and this reflects a responsible and informed approach to the contribution educational services make to national economic stability and responsible and inclusive economic growth. Any nation that places taxes on the provision of educational services is a foolish nation and the same holds for any political party.
Labour will be associated with the closure of independent schools. Many of these schools underpin the economies of smaller towns and cities across the UK and closure of any one of these schools will have major negative local impacts.
It is time for UK politicians and journalists to have an evidence-based discussion on UK futures. As part of this, Labour must be transparent about their decision to break with the convention that exists in many countries that educational services should not be taxed. If this convention is broken, then all providers of educational services should be taxed.
Why tax one type of independent provider of educational services rather than all providers?’
https://blog.bham.ac.uk/socialsciencesbirmingham/2024/06/11/only-foolish-nations-tax-educational-services-labours-blind-spot-and-independent-schools/
What is that unpleasant odour on the air?
Oh! Could it be the stench of socialist fascist discrimination……..
I am sure HMRC has clearly explained this to the government ministers!!
Snivel Serpents (who are mainly socialist), advise ministers.What kind of advice do you think the ministers are getting?
It is not just autistic kids.
Some of the very bright kids in the top 1%+ – so-called ‘gifted’ – get bullied and abused in the State sector and can only get a proper education in the private sector.
The entire role of independent schools and their importance to so many ordinary kids is ignored by Starmfuhrer’s evil national socialist genocidal racist antisemitic empire.
The politics of envy barely covers it.
It would please me enormously if this government of second-rate lefty lawyers was told to begger off and think again by the courts.
Me too. But you have to remember that, since Blair, the Judges who run the courts are second-rate lefty lawyers too. Something else that the fake Conservatives left to fester over their time in office.
The courts are increasingly staffed by left leaning judges and lawyers, So the system itself has become infected with leftist theory and practice.
Apparently Surrey CC have approached independent schools in Surrey to pay for places vacated by kids whose parents are taking the kids out. The CC is obliged to provide a school place for the kid, it’s possible the fees simply get landed on the taxpayer.
Where I used to live in London, specialist SEN state schools were very well funded – they cost way more than ordinary schools (maybe three to four times more), mainly because of the much lower pupil to teacher ratio. The local authority still paid for private provision for some pupils because they didn’t have enough state SEN places. I don’t know what the private provision cost but judging by this article it may not have been that much more than the same provision provided by the local authority.
In the state sector the allowance per child is about £6k. Private schools are about £18k. So a delta of about £12k (+ the VAT) per pupil.
Yes but funding for specialist local authority run SEN schools is from memory about three times that of ordinary schools – at least it was when I was a school governor in my London borough
Seems an excellent solution to me: the Council (the taxpayer of course) pays the difference. It will clearly cost more in the long run to move the kids out of schools and into the state sector.
Perhaps DS might want to investigate the waiting time for a child to be assessed in the state system for special care due to learning difficulties/autism etc. Apparantly if there is no professionally signed off statement by a specialist then when they move to secondary school their is no extra help.
In my Niece’s area of the West midlands the wait list is over 3years.
I checked this morning and Universities do not pay VAT nor, obviously, do State Schools. The Lords has a tabled motion to prevent the Bill passing; the Lords can stop it dead in its tracks because it was not in the Manifesto.
This, to me, is a Class Action case with Government having little room for manouvre. A vitriolic, ideological Tax is never going to be passed surely. It is clear that the Socialist version of thinking is “Must be rich, vote Tory, stop them having what we had”.
Lords can’t stop tax changes but maybe there are associated regulations tgey could challenge.
But why would they. Labour have more peers than others, add in greens and LibDems as well as many many left wing Tories (in name only) “TINOs”.
There is an obvious but little heard side issue to this: those kids being thrown out of great schools, those kids who will be denied a place via the charity price of being VAT exempt, will not be paying as much tax in the future.
What is the likelihood that Little Johnny and Little Janey, denied a free place at a great school, which all of the schools do as part of being tax exempt, will go on to be leaders of industry, politics, Science when incarcerated in a State School?
Shove Johnny and Janey in a State school because their parents can’t afford the fees and what happens to the long-term economy?
Additionally, we will be the only country in Europe charging VAT on Education. Even worse is that we will be the only country, perhaps in the world, specifically discriminating against the Education of Children. I do not see Reeves issuing an edict to charge VAT on Oxford educations where she went.
Labour often talk about the Nasty Party. What can be nastier than denying an education to disabled children? What can be nastier than discriminating against children whose parents can’t scrape together VAT fees?
What can be nastier than a racist, anti-child, anti-white, antisemitic party?
And this was where the grammar schools were so vital in “levelling up”. So that all could make it to the top despite a financially poor background.
Comprehensive education (another Labour party disaster introduced in 1965 by Anthony Crosland) has gradually destroyed all attempts at helping the clever child from a poor background to improve their lot.
We can see the results of this 60 year old policy with the gang of cretins that are currently running our country.
If the mother is asking for help funding the legal action then it indicates to me there is not one decent legal firm or charity left in England that will stand up to help a disabled child (despite receiving funding to do this) or dare to stand up against the Govt.
The only ones that get pro-bono these days seem to be those arriving in dinghies.
The father is a retired Police Office and Army Vet …… so completely undeserving of anything from this appalling, spiteful, divisive Government.
Taxpayer money needs to be squandered on the foreign criminals who are flooding in across the channel.
I think legally enshrined rights should be about freedom from state action, not entitlement to state benefits (to paraphrase Clarence Thomas). I am not sure this is a clear case of “discrimination”. Arguably it’s a case of “disparate impact” – a law that impacts a particular group unduly, even though that impact is not intended. We should be careful about using the ECHR or similar legislation for what are essentially political matters. Didn’t those stupid Swiss women complaining about “climate change” use the ECHR.
I despise Labour and everything they stand for, and think the VAT proposal is utterly despicable and wrong.
I tend to think that the state should get out of the business of education completely and provide a social safety net in the form of vouchers for people who can’t afford it. However special needs education is tricky as it’s so expensive and by the time you know you need it, it’s too late to buy insurance for it. I guess the state could provide bigger vouchers for people with such needs. Nobody’s education is perfect for them so there are going to be grey areas. In my experience, if you have SEN then depending on the need you will get a much better education in a specialist SEN school, which as I have posted elsewhere cost a lot more. If you are on the wrong side of the borderline, you may have a poor education in a “normal” school.
If Monro’s comment is correct then the key issue seems to me to be the legality of applying VAT education.
That needs to be looked at as a matter of urgency.
The provision of an appropriate education and support for children with Special Educational Needs is a disgrace in this country and has been for many years. Like all Social Care, no government has addressed it for 30 years or more.
I don’t whether VAT rules can be changed by ministerial fiat or whether it requires legislation, but either way the government can do whatever parliament allows it to do, short of the action being deemed unconstitutional by the “supreme court”. So I don’t think there is anything to look into.
As for SEN education provision, our personal experience with it has been that it was excellent, though this applied to a specialist SEN school. Experiences of others we know with SEN kids in mainstream were patchy at best. To be fair, it’s very resource intensive. It always seemed to me that the focus of mainstream schools was exam results and especially in large secondary schools that doesn’t gel well with providing SEN provision – but lots of parents really want their SEN kids to be in mainstream. I tend to think smaller schools would help.
There is an additional problem in our society that it seems that, suddenly, in the past 20 years or so, millions of kids have become stricken with anxiety and all kinds of ‘can’t cope’ with life problems. An yet they live in an age of plenty, relative wealth, ease, comfort and safety. I suspect our over protectionist, mental health obsessed, female population as the main driver of this national malaise.