VAT: Independent Schools
Debate between Paul Waugh and Claire Coutinho(2 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Paul Waugh (Rochdale) (Lab/Co-op)
I congratulate the Conservative party on calling this debate today, for the simple reason that it confirms what many of us already know: that the Tories are much more focused on the 7% of pupils in private school than they are on the 93% in state education. Given that the Tory leadership contest is approaching its exciting climax, it is worth pointing out that state education has got barely a mention in that contest so far—I know it is a minority sport, but we expect better. In the last Tory leadership contest, Liz Truss spent her time either criticising her own state school or criticising the right hon. Member for Richmond and Northallerton (Rishi Sunak) for his time at the £45,000-a-year Winchester college. At one point, one of her team said that
“she will take no lectures in educational standards from an LA-based, Goldman Sachs banker who went to a school for the uber-elite.”
Meow, as my immediate predecessor in Rochdale might say.
David Cameron famously went to Eton; indeed, it was Michael Gove who attacked the “preposterous” number of his fellow Cabinet Ministers who had been to Eton. I am delighted to say that there are more Labour MPs who went to my own state school, Oulder Hill community school in Rochdale, than went to Eton—my hon. Friend the Member for Whitehaven and Workington (Josh MacAlister) and I are both proud of that school tie. Sadly, recent Prime Ministers and even Education Secretaries decided that the state sector for which they were responsible was not good enough for them. During partygate, we got used to the Tory party thinking the covid rules were for other people.
Paul Waugh
I am sorry, but I will not give way. I do not have much time.
“One rule for them, another for the rest of us,” was the Tory party’s approach back then. Now, their approach is, “One school for them, another for the rest of us”—that is just as toxic a charge. The real problem is money. There was a 9% fall in spending per pupil between 2010 and 2020. Worst of all, we have had 14 years of no overall growth in spending per pupil in our schools, a squeeze that the IFS said was
“without precedent in post-war UK history”.
Turning back to the Tory leadership contest, most of the contenders for that poisoned chalice have claimed that if elected, they will restore private school tax breaks. The fact that the Tories plan to make another £1.3 billion-worth of cuts to state schools on top of their own record of austerity proves that they have not learned a thing from their catastrophic defeat at the last election. If they all put into state schools an ounce of the passion, the emotion and—yes—the hard cash they put into private schools, the public might start to listen to them again.