Rachel Reeves is spending hundreds of thousands on top barristers to defend her VAT on private school fees, as parents of children with Special Educational Needs (SEN) mount a landmark legal challenge.
The Observer has splashed this morning on the chaos surrounding Labour's plans to impose VAT on school fees, with the Treasury refusing to confirm the tax raid will go ahead from January 1st.
VAT on private schools won't harm the most well-off. Rather, because refugees from independent schools will get places at good state schools that would otherwise go to disadvantaged pupils, it will harm the least well-off.
Alexis Quinn, the mother of a 14 year-old with SEN at a private school, is taking legal action against the Government for imposing VAT on school fees, claiming it breaches the European Convention on Human Rights.
The Government’s VAT raid on private schools risks costing the taxpayer up to £1.8 billion as parents cut their work hours once their children move into the state sector, a report has found.
During the election campaign and in its manifesto, Labour promised not to raise taxes and said nothing about scrapping the winter fuel allowance. Has any party broken so many promises so quickly, asks Stephen Glover?
Does introducing VAT on school fees in the middle of the school year show Keir Starmer's cruel indifference to parents and children? Or that he just hasn't thought it through? asks Mr Chips.
Given that the new Labour Government is planning to introduce VAT on independent school fees from January 2025, it's time for action to highlight the harmful impact on children, says Philip Leith.
In what looks likely to be the first of many private school closures as a result of Labour's VAT raid, Alton School in Hampshire has shut its doors, sending its pupils scrambling to find places in the state sector.
An economics teacher at a private school has looked at Labour's proposal to raise £1.7 billion from charging VAT on school fees and concluded it won't in fact raise any money.
