School Libraries

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Monday 30th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

It will be important to ensure that the RSHE guidance, which of course the previous Government also took a very long time to consider, is appropriate and provides the right guidance for schools and parents. To be clear on this, schools should ensure that parents are able to view on request all curriculum materials used to teach RSHE. We are currently reviewing the RSHE statutory guidance. We are doing that in a way that ensures that we provide appropriate guidance for schools and consider the safeguarding of children and the appropriateness of their education at all stages. We will publish this guidance soon.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, with one in four children leaving primary school without the appropriate levels of literacy does the Minister agree that the most important thing we should be doing is giving children a love of books? Was Einstein not right when he said that if you want your child to be a genius, read to them? Would that not be good advice to give, particularly to fathers up and down this land? As a child, my demobbed father, who was a Desert Rat, took me on the back of his bicycle every Saturday morning to get two books from the public lending library. I have always been extremely grateful to him.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

My dad did the same, and I have always been extremely grateful to him for that. The noble Lord is right that the first people who can encourage children to love books are their parents. That is why, through the family support and the Best Start for Life information that we provide to parents, ways of engaging at home with your children and books is a very important part of that. Then that love of books in the widest possible sense needs to be continued in school, and that is what this Government will support.

Independent Schools: VAT

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Thursday 17th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, during our previous debate, I referred to advice from my noble friend Lord Pannick on issues of compatibility with conventions that are relevant to the rights of children and their education. In the light of this proposal’s impact on schools catering for children with special needs, faith schools and specialist schools—as well as the disruptive consequences for children caused by the implementation date—several submissions have now been made by Members of this House to the Joint Committee on Human Rights, on which I serve, urging it to consider these issues of compatibility. There is also to be a legal challenge in the courts. It would be prudent and respectful of proper parliamentary scrutiny and consideration for the Government to wait for the outcome of such consideration and I urge them to do so. It is true that, when you legislate in haste, you repent at leisure.

Independent Schools: VAT Exemption

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Thursday 5th September 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, in welcoming the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Malvern, to her new responsibilities, I also say at the outset that I am grateful to her for promising to respond, when she replies, to some detailed questions I have sent to her. I also thank the admirable noble Lord, Lord Lexden, for the customarily powerful and eloquent way in which he introduced today’s important debate. I agree with everything that he has said today.

For family reasons my Cross-Bench colleague and noble friend Lord Pannick is unable to be here today. He has looked at this education tax and its potential conflict with the European Convention on Human Rights. He tells me that it

“is strongly arguable that the imposition of VAT would breach Article 2 of the First Protocol read on its own (access to educational facilities) or with Article 14 of the Convention (arbitrary discrimination in the enjoyment of educational facilities)”.

I serve on the Joint Committee on Human Rights, whose mandate is to monitor potential conflict between government policies and the ECHR. My noble friend Lord Pannick says that

“it would be a very valuable service if the Joint Committee could look at this”.

I agree, and I hope that the Minister will assure us that the Government will not proceed if this is found to be in breach of the ECHR.

We need also to scrutinise some of the other claims that have been made, such as the impact on public finance. The Adam Smith Institute calculates that, far from generating revenue, the policy could lead to a staggering loss of up to £2 billion. The Minister has seen that assessment and the work of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, along with a Times editorial, which all question the Government’s assumptions about raising revenue. Let us also look at what happened in 2015 in Greece when a similar tax was introduced. Some schools were forced to close, while others inevitably passed on the tax to parents. The same thing is already happening here.

Driven by dogma, it is easy to say that this is all justified as a long-overdue attack on the ultra-rich. However, as the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, reminded us at the outset of the debate, this regressive double tax on people who have already paid for universal education through their income tax will not impact wealthy families who pay for education, often, through property purchases in sought-after school districts, merely increasing educational inequalities. This education tax will disproportionately impact middle-income families, such as those of the 168,000 children who receive financial support from independent schools or the 10,000 who pay no fees. These are the families who will suffer, many of whom have made great sacrifices for their children’s education, not those with ultra-deep pockets.

Those affected will include men and women in our Armed Forces—families who make use of the Continuity of Education Allowance. Some say that they are having to consider exiting military service as a consequence. How does the Minister respond to their appeals, and to professionals, including those working in education, policing and healthcare, who rely on the wraparound care provided by many independent schools; or to the single mother whose letter I sent to the Minister, and for whom independent schooling is the only way she can maintain her employment?

As the noble Lord, Lord Addington, reminded us, what about the impact on children with special needs or mental illness? The noble Lord gave a figure which I had not heard before that as many as 90,000 people will be affected by this. They will have chosen an independent school because of its particular expertise or focus on those children.

Finally, introducing this tax midway through the school year, on accelerated timeframes, will adversely affect children, who may struggle to integrate into new schools, with some forced to change curriculum, exam boards or subjects. Top of our concern, and at the heart of this policy, must be the impact on children. It clearly is not. This taxation is punitive, unjust and unfair, may be in breach of the ECHR, and will worsen educational inequalities. For all those reasons, I hope the Government will think again.