VAT: Independent Schools
Debate between Damian Hinds and Harriett Baldwin(3 weeks, 3 days ago)
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Damian Hinds
My hon. Friend is right. That comes from the rushed nature of the legislation. The sloppy drafting means that children who are not of school age get dragged into this tax if they happen to be in the same room as children who are, and there are concerns about what might follow in other borderline cases.
The Government claim that the policy is about revenue, not politics, but having read the Secretary of State’s twitterings, I think hon. Members could be forgiven for mistaking the motivation. It is entirely spurious, for multiple reasons, to link this tax to 6,500 teachers, mental health support or anything else. The money will go into general Exchequer receipts, and anyway, 6,500 teachers is not that many in the scheme of things, given the 468,000 there are now. That is a compound growth rate of 0.3% over five years—and, by the way, a lot fewer teachers than we recruited in the last five years. Mental health support teams are already being rolled out, and they cover primary schools as well as secondary schools. It is not clear what the difference is in the new Government’s policy on mental health support, other than that it will not include primary schools.
To the extent that the VAT revenue could be hypothecated, it looks a lot more like that revenue would reduce cuts to education resourcing, rather than increasing it. If the policy is about revenue, not politics, the Government could easily commit to one simple thing today. They are confident, they tell us, that the policy will raise a large sum of money and not create large costs. Will they commit to measuring and reporting back on that, and if it turns out, against expectations, that they were wrong, will they reverse it?
Dame Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)
I thank my right hon. Friend, who is giving an excellent introduction to the debate. Is it his understanding that our military personnel, and those serving in our diplomatic service, will also be hit by this tax?
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Damian Hinds and Harriett Baldwin(6 months ago)
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Damian Hinds
We are funding high-quality education, and the quality of that education is seen in the results, be they the performance of 15-year-olds in mathematics, English and science, or the results of primary school children, which have improved dramatically since 2010. On the NEU “analysis”, I am afraid that it is flawed in multiple respects: it does not include a number for the high-needs budget, which has grown so much, and ultimately it does not use real numbers for 2010.
Dame Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)
On the subject of school budgets, will the Minister join me in welcoming the letter that I received from Malvern College in Worcestershire this week? Not only is that independent school one of the largest employers in Worcestershire, but it contributes £28 million to the local economy, and if its 300-plus fee-paying pupils had to be educated in local schools, that would come at a huge cost to the public purse.
Damian Hinds
My hon. Friend is exactly correct. If the Labour party got into government, there would be a hike in the cost of going to private schools, which would push a number of families out of that provision. We do not know how many, Labour does not know how many and nor does anybody else, but we do know that some— possibly very many—would come into the state-funded system, causing great strain and possibly cuts that would affect other children.