Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, pursuant to the answer of 9 September 2024 to Question 4047 on Private Education: Fees and Charges, whether the Tax Information and Impact Note will differentiate between (a) mainstream and special provision and (b) primary, secondary and sixth form phases.

On 29 July, the Government announced that, as of 1 January 2025, all education services and vocational training provided by a private school in the UK for a charge will be subject to VAT at the standard rate of 20 per cent. This will also apply to boarding services provided by private schools.

Any fees paid from 29 July 2024 relating to the term starting in January 2025 onwards will be subject to VAT. Furthermore, where a school in England has charitable status, the Government will legislate to remove their eligibility to business rates charitable rate relief. This is intended to take effect from April 2025, subject to Parliamentary passage.

A technical note setting out the details of these two tax policies has been published online here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/vat-on-private-school-fees-removing-the-charitable-rates-relief-for-private-schools.

Draft VAT legislation was also published alongside this technical note, forming a technical consultation, which closed on 15 September. As part of this technical consultation, the Government engaged with a broad range of stakeholders.

Whilst developing these policies, the Government has carefully considered the impact that they will have on pupils and their families across both the state and private sector, as well as the impact they will have on state and private schools. Following scrutiny of the Government's costings by the independent Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), details of the Government’s assessment of the expected impacts of these policy changes will be published at the Budget on 30 October in a Tax Information and Impact Note.