Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to ensure that the state school sector is able to accommodate children in the independent sector who will need to transfer due to the introduction of VAT on schools in (a) September 2024 and (b) January 2025.

The government understands that moving school can be challenging for parents and pupils. However, the department expects very few pupils to need to move within the academic year. Local authorities and schools have processes in place to support pupils moving between schools, and children move between private sector and the state sector every year.

The number of pupils who may move schools as a result of these changes represents a very small proportion of overall pupil numbers in the state sector. Furthermore, the government expects any displacement to take place over several years, reducing immediate pressures.

If the pupil displacement is somewhat above the Institute for Fiscal Studies estimated range of up to 40,000, this is likely to represent less than 1% of the more than 9 million total UK state school pupils. There is significant spare capacity in existing state schools.

A technical note setting out the details of these two tax policies has been published and is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/vat-on-private-school-fees-removing-the-charitable-rates-relief-for-private-schools. Draft VAT legislation has also been published alongside this technical note.