Contribution
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Lewell-Buck.
In Windsor, we are very lucky to have some of the finest state and independent schools in this country, and I am proud to represent them all. One has already been mentioned; it is very prominent, but it is not very reflective of the situation in my constituency.
On two constituency visits this morning before I came into Parliament, I counted the independent schools that I passed. I passed six; 23% of the pupils in my constituency attend independent schools. The caricature that my right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) said was always in the papers when independent schools are discussed does not reflect 23% of the parents in my constituency.
In my recent surgeries, I have had many parents who are really struggling with the proposed policy. Often, both parents are working, and one of them may have taken on a second job. In many instances, they have remortgaged their house. They have gone without. Many marriages are under pressure, and I am concerned about those parents and their children.
Because we have such a high percentage of independent schools in my constituency, they are not the only ones affected, even though they might be the most directly affected. The displaced children hit my state schools, and that means our state sector is bracing for an influx of children that it will struggle to accommodate. That is why I think this is a false choice: it should not be state versus independent.
Our schools are an ecosystem, and they are all valuable, because education is a public good. It promotes social mobility, strengthens our economy and benefits society at large. No other country in the world tries to tax it. When they have tried—as in Greece, where it lasted only four months—it has massively backfired. In fact, many developed countries look to subsidise independent education to promote parental choice and drive up school standards, so the Government are unique in their policy and, frankly, their vindictiveness.
Whenever the Labour Government hike taxes, there are unintended consequences. Just as their jobs tax is hitting charities and hospices, their tax on independent schools will hit military families and the 130,000 SEND pupils who are currently in independent schools. Many of the parents I have spoken to use those schools as a way of giving their children that extra bit of support that they would struggle to find in the state system. I think every single Member of this House recognises the challenges facing their local authority when it comes to SEND provision.
From my involvement with the all-party parliamentary group on Down syndrome, which my right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire chairs, it is clear that getting an EHCP is already an uphill struggle, and taxing independent schools will create the most regressive possible outcome. It will add to the pressures already facing our local authorities, and the SEND children in the existing state provision will pay the highest price.
In a similar vein—the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Dr Pinkerton) discussed this—2,666 military families in this country rely on independent schools to give their children a stable education. For those families, VAT relief can make all the difference. I previously co-signed a letter that my hon. Friend the Member for Solihull West and Shirley (Dr Shastri-Hurst) sent to the Chancellor, calling on the Government to protect from VAT military families who make use of the continuity of education allowance.
Although the Chancellor has committed to re-rating CEA, I maintain that the full exemption from VAT is needed to truly support military families. That would make a real difference to those enlisted at either of Windsor’s two great garrisons, to whom we owe so much. That support should be given special consideration in the light of the Prime Minister’s discussions over the weekend and in the House today.
Labour Front Benchers frequently refer to parents who pay for independent education enjoying a tax break, but parents actually save the state £8,210—the money it costs to educate a child in the state sector—and receive no compensation for the income taxes that they pay. In my book, that is no tax break at all. Frankly, the numbers do not add up. The Adam Smith Institute has estimated that if even 10% of children move to the state sector—anecdotally, in my constituency I am seeing more than that—any revenue will be nullified. Any more than that 10%, and the policy will actually cost taxpayers money. That highlights the ideology behind the decision.
In my view, the Labour party is playing politics with children’s futures. It is forcing families to have difficult conversations mid-year and make tough decisions. The saddest conversations I have had have been with parents who have felt the need to separate children from classes mid-year. Frankly, only a Labour Government could set out with the aim of improving education in this country and introduce policies that have led to 40 school closures since the Budget.