That Starmer fella...

£17k a term to "invest"

Where are these figures plucked from?

When I looked at private primary schools they were £4-5k.

When I Google it says £5,218 per term.

You are correct, should be ~£17k per year, not per term, have updated accordingly. (Link from BleakRefs post above)

https://ifs.org.uk/publications/tax-private-school-fees-and-state-school-spending

Yeah, this went over my head, should have gone to private school.

will taking the tax breaks away help educational attainment overall? Will it stop the worst problems caused by private schools (ie the sorts of people who come out of eton)? Not convinced.

It won't stop it, but that's not what this policy is designed to do. This policy was designed to improve state schools by removing tax and business rate exemptions on those organisations which enable the wealthy to opt out of the state school system.

If Labour wanted to end that inequality they'd ban private schools altogether. But that'd be quite an aggressive policy. This way it will reduce the inequality by taxing those who can already afford it.

Even though I'm very much in favour of this policy I also think it should be tapered. But that's really up to the schools. They're not obliged to pass the costs on.

Brexit dividends..
https://order-order.com/2023/09/28/starmers-private-school-vat-policy-would-be-against-eu-law/

Won't somebody think of the rich people?!

The state school system really couldn't handle a sudden large influx of extra pupils all at once.

https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/school-capacity

Isn't that part of what's been discussed over the last few pages even before this discussion?

Obviously anyone who can afford full time private childcare is comparatively rich - be that nursery or private school.

It would be interesting to see a good info graphic showing private schools by parental location vs their catchment area showing capacity.

I guess one option for borderline struggling private schools, would be for the state to take over ownership of them.

I doubt this. There would likely be some sort of increase in tutoring or weekend extra schools.

Ah but there would be hundreds of empty schools and teachers who could become part of the state system

oh so this is where the unbearable nonsense from the golf thread came from

Nursery is a strawman here as many families are spending what amounts to almost the wife's entire income on nursery fees to allow her to go back to work after mat leave.

Private school is a choice, nursery isn't (unless you want a 5 year career break).

Which means they are able to get by on one income. I would say that is comparatively rich.

If our youngest went to nursery full time it'd be £18k p/a post tax. I'm sorry but however you want to frame my argument, being able to afford that makes you extremely privileged. Given less than a quarter of mothers go back to full time work I'm happy to stand by my strawman.

The golf thread is entirely made up of unbearable nonsense.

Which means they are able to get by on one income. I would say that is comparatively rich.

This doesn't really make sense, If you've got a 20k yearly nursery fee and you're making 20k after tax then you're in the exact same position financially whether you put your kid through nursery or not.

Families don't have the choice of a free state nursery and a private one, the choice is you work to put your kid into a nursery or a parent does all the child rearing and sacrifices their career as a result.

Isn't the reality that people who have children spend a year and a half-ish killing their savings and wracking up loads of debt putting their kid into nursery knowing it's a short term issue as government financial support kicks in at 2 years? Regardless of whether mum goes back to work or not.

People who send their kids to private school can afford to do that for the next 14 years or so and debt isn't the same issue...

So both partners are on 20k a year and the choice is between 1 partner stay home and live on 20k a year or both partners work earning 40k and then 20k is spent on nursery.

R
I
C
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?

the 15 or 30 hours of childcare kicks in at 3 years. Plus its the term after their birthday.

So my boy turned 3 last April, but wasn't eligible for the free childcare until the start of the September term.

Sorry yeah - not great on the specifics. And sorry you're on the long slog.

My point being, the decision to have a child and deal with nursery fees is a much shorter window of financial hardship than having the option of choosing to do that for the entirety of a child's education.

Oh absolutely.

It's also not a straight choice between FT nursery or stay at home parent.

There are a bunch of other options between those two. Some more affordable/desirable than others.

Ah but there would be hundreds of empty schools and teachers who could become part of the state system

I was thinking more of the "bottom" (in terms of affordability) 10% of secondary school children leaving the private system and attempting to enter the state system. This would be spread over all of the public schools, so it's unlikely any single school would outright close, but the state school system couldn't handle a sudden influx of 60,000 children.

(To clarify, I mean the people who are only just managing to pay the current private school fees. Whatever sudden rise in public school fees, even if tapered, is going to knock a bunch of parents into deciding that it's just too much for them and off to state school they go. In my hypothetical example that's 10% of the 600k privately educated secondary children, and there aren't 60k spare secondary spaces in the country.)

An extra couple of billion quid should be able to create some additional places though.

Sure, but you don't just magic buildings up at short notice.