Energy Secretary Miatta Fahnbulleh has defended sending her three children to private school, insisting that she should “have the choice” to pay for their education despite championing Labour’s private school tax raid. The Telegraph has more.
Fahnbulleh told the News Agents podcast: “I don’t think that precludes me or anyone else who holds that belief from being part of the Labour team or part of the Labour family.”
The Government imposed 20% VAT on private school fees in January 2025, which has already forced more than 115 fee-paying schools to close.
Fahnbulleh only became an MP in 2024 but has already been tipped as a potential future Labour leader and enjoyed a rapid rise through the ministerial ranks to her Cabinet position.
Asked by Lewis Goodall whether her children’s education would be a problem should she become leader, Fahnbulleh said: “If the question you’re asking me is, do I believe that parents should have the choice to send their kids to independent school, I do, I believe that.
“And parents can do that for a whole host of reasons – because it’s a good school, because their kids have special education needs, because they want schools that are geared towards sports or arts, and that is okay.”
Fahnbulleh was privately educated herself, attending the Beechwood School in Royal Tunbridge Wells, where fees are up to £8,199 per term.
She went on to defend Labour’s decision to impose VAT on private schools, saying: “We’ve got to get to a system where our state education system is serving all of our children.
“And so I found the debate around the VAT exemption really bizarre because of course government’s not going to subsidise parents sending their kids to independent schools.”
Challenged on whether parents who could no longer afford to send their own children to a private school had the right to be “quite irritated” with her, she replied: “Well, Lewis, you don’t know my personal circumstances and I won’t go into them.”
Fahnbulleh admitted that taxing private school fees was “difficult for some parents” but claimed it was the right thing to have done at a time when government budgets were tight.
Labour’s decision to remove VAT exemption for school fees has plunged the private school sector into financial chaos, leading to higher costs and thousands of parents unable to afford the fees.
The number of pupils in independent schools has fallen by 33,000 since 2024, according to the annual schools census released by the Department for Education.
Worth reading in full.
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I agree people should have the choice whether their children should be educated privately. If Fahnbulleh really believes that, as she says she does, why does she support policies that take that choice away from millions of parents because, all of a sudden, the cost of such education is financially beyond them? She’s providing living proof that socialism is all about one rule for the rich elite and another for the poorer majority.
This woman is spending the money we pay her to buy her children the kind of education the people who have to pay her cannot usually afford. Can we hear her thoughts on the redundant music teachers who have had to leave the private sector and who are not wanted in the state sector. One to one music lessons are elitist, you see.
Hypocrisy is a Labour speciality.
If her children do any science at school they may find out why renewables and Net Zero are stupid policy
Hypocrite.
Just another imported Prize Pig of the Labour Party Variety.
“And so I found the debate around the VAT exemption really bizarre because of course government’s not going to subsidise parents sending their kids to independent schools.”
How warped can your thinking be.
My mind wobbles….
Never mind that by sending their children to private schools, parents are saving state schools money. Obviously from her response, this hypocrite was never one of those parents doing three jobs in order to send their children to private school.
What an utter c…
Hmm. Private education VAT exemption:
Suggests an attitude that everything should be subject to VAT (value added tax).
On the upside maybe Cambridge education can remain exempt as it doesn’t add any value.
What about the current VAT exemption on books, children’s clothes, groceries, healthcare? With the attitude of ‘what else can we tax?‘ it won’t be long before those are taxed too.
But not to worry there’s always: https://summersavings.gov.uk/
“What else can we tax?”
Easy-peasy. You set up a government department to examine bank accounts to see who’s paying most tax overall, and on the assumption they must be the richest, you tax the tax. The Tax tax gets included in the assessment, so the amount raised goes up year by year forever. Nothing could possibly go wrong.
Oh look! It’s that Fusilli Pasta Wig woman from Sierra Leone.
Why is she even in our country?
Miatta Nema Fahnbulleh is unfit for high office.
Refuting bullsh*t requires ten times the amount of energy the bullsh*tter used, so I ain’t gonna bother. People know she’s a goddamn hypocrite.
Energy Secretary Miatta Fahnbulleh has defended sending her three children to private school, insisting that she should “have the choice”
What this lump of political scum is saying is this: “I should have the choice, but you shouldn’t. You see, we in the Labour Party are the morally superior people. So our choices for you are extraordinarily wise and right.”
For the many, not the few!
“Working” people.
““We’ve got to get to a system where our state education system is serving all of our children.”. Except yours…
“And so I found the debate around the VAT exemption really bizarre because of course government’s not going to subsidise parents sending their kids to independent schools.” No, the government is not subsidising them – it’s making them pay twice! The taxpayer is subsiding people who send their children to state schools.