Non-Domestic Rating (Multipliers and Private Schools) Bill
Debate between David Simmonds and Luke EvansWednesday 15th January 2025
(2 weeks, 5 days ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Non-Domestic Rating (Multipliers and Private Schools) Bill 2024-26 View all Non-Domestic Rating (Multipliers and Private Schools) Bill 2024-26 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Consideration of Bill Amendments as at 15 January 2025 - (15 Jan 2025)
Dr Luke Evans
We have heard categorically from Labour that private schools are businesses. They see themselves as part of the community and as charities. Now that they are seen as businesses, they will act as businesses and will have to look to raise revenue from all their sports facilities and anything else that they willingly gave away to the state system. Private schools work with the state system and ensure that there is support for the state system—that is the community basis of what schooling is about. Does my hon. Friend share my concern that defining them as businesses will be a big problem?
David Simmonds
My hon. Friend highlights a point that many of us will have heard from our local state schools: the fact that they are in sharing arrangements with private schools to access facilities. They are concerned that, as the cost drivers introduced by the Government and the Budget increase the pressure on those schools, they may lose the free or low-cost access they have.