Sir Kier Starmer’s pledge that a Labour government would remove charitable status from independent schools is not new but, coupled with a commitment to charge VAT on fees, it unambiguously restates that the party is as determined as ever to make conditions for the sector as difficult as possible.
For the many hundreds of small, fee-paying schools these additional financial challenges, coming so soon after Covid-19, would almost certainly result in them closing down.
The majority of independent schools have fewer than 400 pupils; many operate on wafer-thin margins. They often are major employers in the local area, with many small businesses depending on their existence. If they closed, the very rich would go to other fee-paying schools in the UK or overseas, while the less affluent parents would, now denied choice, move their children into the local state schools, adding further strain to their resources. Who gains with such policies?
I addressed the financial naivety of this proposal when it was first announced, but now it’s important to address how this policy would change the education system as a whole.
Schools such as Eton, Harrow or Winchester will barely notice such changes to their charitable and tax statuses: their reserves are deep and assured.
No, it is the small schools, often offering specialist provision to a significant number of their pupils - 17 per cent of pupils in Independent Schools Council (ISC) schools have SEND - which will be the worst hit.
If Labour introduces this legislation then some schools will merge and some will be bought out by larger schools, but one thing that won’t happen is that the demand for such schools will drop because parents will want to provide the best for their children.
If the local state school is the best option then that’s fine, but what if it isn’t? What if there is an affordable option that meets your child’s needs? The local state school may simply not have the resources to offer you what you want but, with a bursary, that independent school could become a viable alternative.
But with tightened budgets, a commitment to widening access - which currently sees nearly 180,000 pupils receiving help with fees - would end. In addition, the many independent/state school partnerships, which benefit so many children in so many ways, would begin to shut down as schools sought to rein in expenditure.
Politically, such moves are not popular among those it seeks to target. Voters in the old “Red Wall” constituencies either care very little about independent schools or think that they are a good thing. Public First’s Ed Dorrell, writing after research had been completed shortly after Starmer had first announced these plans, claimed: “If you’re struggling to pay the bills in Redcar, the idea that someone down south might pay to send their offspring to Rugby is essentially an irrelevance.”
Such ancient battles, fought to the sound of axes being ground, matter only, it seems, to a small sub-section of middle-class Labour voters who care more for symbolic actions than meaningful acts. In these times of division we need, more than ever, to work together.
A government of vision would be creating the conditions to incentivise both sectors to meet together the demands set by universities and employers. Schools need a big tent of ideas, not a few red flags set out to test the wind. The next prime minister needs to set the weather, not be dogged by the storms they too often create.
David James is deputy head of an independent school in London
