Independent Schools: VAT Exemption
Baroness Ramsey of Wall Heath Excerpts(3 weeks, 6 days ago)
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Baroness Ramsey of Wall Heath (Lab)
My Lords, I refer to my interests in the register. I have been lucky enough to play a role in the governance of both state and independent schools. From 2016 until recently, I was chair of Young Epilepsy, which, among many other things, runs a wonderful special independent school in Surrey, called St Piers, for both day and boarding pupils. I am currently a board member of the Lift Schools multi-academy trust—formerly AET—which runs 57 state schools across the country. So noble Lords might think I would find myself somewhat torn when considering the arguments for and against charging independent schools VAT and spending the money generated by so doing on state schools—but I am not.
At Lift Schools, I can see at first hand just how vital that extra injection of money is. In the words of our inspirational chief executive:
“We simply don’t have enough teachers in our schools. This is down to absolute numbers, but it is also down to the fact that the role of a teacher has been stretched beyond anything imaginable 10 years ago. No longer simply an educator, they are social worker, mental health first aider, a parent for some. One of the casualties of this raid on discretionary effort is the wider enrichment that is the norm in independent schools and should be for state schools too—the music, sports, art, drama, debating, foreign trips and field trips”.
As for St Piers and all those other independent schools meeting the needs of children with education, health and care plans, the Government have made crystal clear that fees for these children will be exempt from VAT.
The independent schools that will have to pay VAT are not special schools like St Piers but the ones whose parents choose to pay for their children to have a more well-funded education than the state can afford to provide. I do not criticise parents who wish that the fees they pay to private schools were not going to rise further as a result of the ending of the VAT exemption—of course I do not. But, if we look at the issue in the round from the perspective of the nation’s children as a whole, rather than from only the one in 15 who attend private schools, what do we learn?
We learn from the unimpeachable source of the impartial Institute for Fiscal Studies that the 14 in 15 who go to state school are falling further and further behind, compared with one in 15 at private schools, with their enviable resources. Private schools, the IFS tells us, spent 40% more on their pupils’ education than state schools were funded to do back in 2010—a pretty big gap, I am sure we can all agree. But now the gap is an incredible 90%; it has more than doubled since my party was last in power. In that situation can we really justify a continued 20% tax break for private schools? I think not. Why has the gap got so much bigger? Partly, of course, it is because the previous Government cut state school funding per pupil in the age of austerity, and their more recent increases only brought schools back to where they started in 2010. But it is mainly because private schools have increased their fees, which are 24% higher in real terms than in 2010. By the way, those arguing that charging VAT will mean pupils switching from private to state seem to forget that the 24% increase in fees has led to no reduction whatever in the proportion of pupils going to private schools, which is still steady at one in 15, just as it was in 2010.
But it is not really about the numbers, of course—it is about the children. Let me end by telling noble Lords about my daughter’s first day at her local comprehensive secondary school, and in particular about the instruction she and all new pupils were given that day: no running in the playground at lunchtimes. Why not? Because it was so crowded that they might hurt themselves bumping into each other. Why was it so crowded? Because this hard-pressed state school, desperate for extra cash, had sold part of its land to the adjoining private school. My daughter pressed her face up to the wire fence, gazing at the endless fields stretched out in front of her for the benefit of the one in 15, and thought that that was not fair. She was right: it was not, and it still is not, so let us do something about it.
King’s Speech
Baroness Ramsey of Wall Heath Excerpts(2 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Baroness Ramsey of Wall Heath (Lab)
My Lords, it was a pleasure to listen to my noble friend Lady Smith of Malvern’s expert maiden speech, and I was very moved by that of the noble Baroness, Lady Monckton. I declare my interest as in the register. I hugely welcome the Government’s commitment to promoting children’s well-being. This is such a vital issue for so many children across our country but can be rather a nebulous concept: what does well-being really mean? I will bring it to life by reference to the work of two charities that I have helped govern in recent years.
Until yesterday I was chair of Young Epilepsy, a role I had the honour to fulfil for eight years. I have seen for myself, through countless conversations with youngsters suffering from epilepsy, just how significant the challenge is for the 100,000 and more children and young people in the UK with this condition. One in three children with epilepsy is currently not getting the support they need to participate fully at school. Their seizures are either missed or mistaken for not paying attention. School staff are unaware of what to do when a seizure happens, and children are unnecessarily excluded from learning, sports and trips. Here are some of the voices of children themselves:
“I wasn’t allowed to do any PE or the like all year even though given the okay by the doctors … I wasn’t allowed to participate in school trips due to the risk of having a seizure, even on small local trips”.
A huge step forward could be achieved if schools were required to put in place an individual healthcare plan for every child with epilepsy, helping school staff understand each child’s epilepsy, ensuring their safety and paving the way for full inclusion in every school activity. With the necessary support from a Labour Government genuinely committed to all children’s well-being, this is within our reach.
But as so often for our children and young people, real progress requires the contribution of both health and education working in partnership. Only half of children with epilepsy are seen by a paediatrician with the necessary expertise within the required two weeks of referral after their first seizure. Children with complex epilepsy face additional challenges: only half are accessing the specialist support they need, and only one in three of those who could benefit from epilepsy surgery is referred to have this treatment even considered.
It is not simply a matter of physical health. Children with epilepsy are four times more likely to experience a mental health problem than their peers, but only one in five epilepsy clinics includes mental health support. Again, if we listen to the youngsters themselves, their stories can be heartbreaking. So the commitment in the King’s Speech to reduce waiting times, focus on prevention and improve mental health provision for young people could not be more timely.
The second children’s charity I have been delighted to be able to support in recent years, as a member of the board, is AET, a large multi-academy trust that brings together a family of nearly 60 primary, secondary and special schools right across the country. Time is against me today, so let me just reference the wonderful work of one of its primaries, in Birmingham, not far from where I grew up. More than two-thirds of its pupils get free school meals, but this year’s results show that this certainly does not stand in the way of exceptionally strong academic performance: 93% of them achieved success in the SATs they sat at the end of their primary school years.
Noble Lords might be wondering how the school does it and could be forgiven for imagining that this focus on English and maths must be at the expense of everything else, but not so. What is so striking about the school is the huge programme of personal development and the promotion of health and well-being activities of the sort referenced this morning on the news by our new Secretary of State for Education. In fact, the rigour and focus the school brings to the three Rs are just as evident in the approach it takes to children’s well-being through sports clubs, social skills training, critical thinking, community involvement, dance and drama workshops, public speaking and so much more. The school believes that academic standards and health and well-being need to reinforce each other, not be in competition, and its example is a beacon that shows what can be done.
We all know, unfortunately, that this is the exception that proves the rule and that far too many of our children and young people do not get the broad curriculum and extracurricular activities so evident in the example I have just given. That is because the accountability and funding regime that the new Government have inherited does nothing to promote it, leaving individual heads to do the best they can, often in challenging circumstances, and far too often our children are the ones who suffer as a result.
Our new Government’s commitment to a comprehensive review of the school curriculum and accountability system could not be more timely. It provides a wonderful opportunity to harness the commitment and expertise of head teachers up and down the country to turn the exception I have talked about today into the rule for all our children.