Lord Wrottesley (Con)

My Lords, I rise briefly to support Amendment 8 in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, the noble Earl, Lord Minto, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Norwich. The express intention of the Bill is to support those serving in His Majesty’s Armed Forces. There is no doubt that VAT on school fees will have an adverse impact on services families, who will more than likely find themselves serving overseas at some point in their careers, sometimes on multiple occasions, maybe as they start a family. A 20% increase in the cost of educating their children is absolutely a welfare issue, but it is equally a recruitment and retention issue. As we have heard from the noble Lords tabling these amendments, families serving abroad rely on the stability that boarding schools provide—largely independent and private schools, but also schools from the state sector. The decision of a family, or in this case an individual, to start or continue to serve in His Majesty’s Armed Forces—after all, they are likely to be not particularly well paid, compared to their equivalents in other areas of public service, let alone in the private sector—will often rely on the add-ons and the benefits offered as a result of their serving as a member of His Majesty’s Armed Forces. As with SEND children, given that there are concerns that any proposed top-ups may not fully compensate the additional costs of VAT on school fees, why are we not going to exempt members of His Majesty’s Armed Forces from this additional financial burden? It may—I suggest that it will—dissuade people from starting or even going on to build a career in the Armed Forces.