Independent Schools: VAT and Business Rates Relief

Debate between Rupa Huq and Christine Jardine

Monday 3rd March 2025 Westminster Hall

[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mr Vickers, and to follow the hon. Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Dr Huq). I feel as if the speakers so far have been talking about me, because they have been talking about parents who are not rich but who send their children to independent schools. I no longer have a declarable interest, but my daughter did go to an independent school. We were not wealthy, and it was not easy, but it was our choice. We never regretted it, but we often struggled to finance it. I know that there are thousands of parents, many in my constituency, who face an even bigger challenge because of this change.

My daughter went to an independent school in the west of Scotland. It was originally the town school—anyone from Glasgow knows which one I mean—and it had a tradition of awarding a large number of bursaries every year. A lot of the children who were at her school and are now doing well would not have got that place otherwise. A lot of them faced challenges, and the school helped them. We need to remember that we are talking not about the Etons and the Harrows—the big schools—but about a lot of independent schools that often provide a service in communities. It is a choice made by parents who are not always rich.

My city of Edinburgh is one of the areas of the country with the highest proportion of children educated in independent school—it is one in four. That is reflected in the figures in the petition. There were 740 signatures from my constituency, which is a higher number than for any other petition that I remember from my almost eight years in this place. That fact is also reflected in my mailbox and in the concern that parents in Edinburgh regularly express to me. They do not always have their children in the independent sector; a lot of them have their children in the state sector. Every week, parents come to me who cannot get a place for their child in the local state school because it is close to capacity. That problem will only be made worse if many of those one in four children are forced, by this Government, into the state sector because their parents can no longer afford the choice that they made.

[Dr Huq]

The hon. Lady and I were both girls in those schools, and she talked about her daughter. Does she accept that it is often the parents who want their daughters to have an all-girls education. There are figures from the Girls’ Schools Association. There is also the head of Dame Allan’s girls’ school, who said that girls thrive better in all subjects in all-girls environments and that they choose things such as physics and maths more when there are not boys around mucking about.

[Christine Jardine]

I accept that point and absolutely agree. It reminds me of the point that for a lot of parents, their children are in independent schools because they were struggling in the state sector. They moved their children into the independent sector, where they are thriving. Rightly or wrongly, that was the parents’ choice, and we—or, at least, the Labour Government—would be taking that choice away from them, because of the fee increase. I also find it difficult to understand a Labour Government who would support the principle of taxing education. As well as the practical issues with the policy, they are taxing education, which is surely not something that they would support.

Introducing the change halfway through the school year has caused issues for many parents, who have suddenly found that all the budgeting they have done is out the window. They may have more than one child at a school that they can no longer afford due to the increase in school fees. That is why so many people are writing to me every weekend to say that they are having to think about what they will do about their child’s education and where they will find a place.