By Graeme Mccormick
If Labour put VAT on school fees it is possible that around 10% of children will move from the private sector to the state sector. That’s 54,000 more children which the state has to educate.
It costs approximately £10,000 to educate a child each year in the state sector, so the state will have to find £540,000,000 each year.
In addition there will be a cost of building extra schools to house 54,000 kids. That’s not cheap and takes time to find the sites then build the schools. An estimated cost is £1.5 billion. Meantime state schools become over crowded.
The biggest drawback to this is that the £1.6 billion Labour claim will be generated by this policy will be considerably less if private schools such as Lomond in Helensburgh and St Aloysius in Glasgow become smaller.
What it will generate in less tax will be swallowed up in providing education for all these children coming into the state sector.
Labour claim the money generated will be used to employ more teachers in the state sector, but there will be no money to do this.
Regardless of your view on private schools, Labour’s policy will not improve state education.
It will put a huge strain on it with the flood of new children and no places to put them or extra staff to teach them.
The only way Labour can fund its education programme is to increase general taxation, which we all pay and not just parents who send their kids to private schools.
Another SNP man, Iain Lawson, put his view point: “I don’t support private schools but I agree with your analysis of the financial benefits there will be no great financial benefit after the replacement costs are factored in.”
Gwen Jones-Edwards commented: “For some children with special individual needs, private schools are a better option.
“Of course, the problem is that they are only affordable to certain parents, though some grants allow places for children who wouldn’t otherwise be able to get there.
“It was a long time ago, but I was educated in a private school, or what was then known as a ‘direct grant’ school.
“The upshot was that I achieved far better grades at O-level than the schoolchildren who had been in my class in primary school, though I’m sure that I was no more intelligent than them.
“And when I made the decision to leave that school and enter a comprehensive school for sixth form, the result was the opposite: I achieved substantially poorer grades than the girls I had left behind in the direct grant school, where previously I had level-pegged with them.
“This taught me that our state school system, at least at that time, must have had deficiencies. I doubt whether things have improved substantially, though I’m not an expert in this field.
“The other comment that I would have is on the promise to supply ‘more teachers’. This is the same as the promise, oft repeated, to provide more doctors and nurses. From where are they to come, I ask myself?”
Sooz Wilkinson commented on Graeme Mccormick’s point: “If you’re going to start crunching numbers, crunch all the numbers. There are 24,453 state schools in the UK. That number of 54,000 is nothing more than a guess but even if true, that’s two extra pupils per school.
“That is not a figure any school is going to be worried about. It’s a spurious number. The rate of VAT discussed is 5%. Those who can afford a private education can afford a 5% rise. After all, of all the reasons people pay for private education, affordability aint one of them.
“Labour don’t have many policies, the chances of them actually following through with this policy is slim but it’s a good policy.
“It’ll raise much needed funding for state education from those who can afford it. If it curbs the numbers of children damaged by being sent off to be brought up in an institution, so much the better.
Graeme Mccormick hit back: “Where does it say Vat at 5%? All the comments I’ve read say 20%.
Most private schools are in urban areas so the schools there will see an influx.
“Day schools are very different from the Etons of this world. Most are not for profit but plough their income back into the schools.
Lomond School and St Aloysius College, which a number of West Dunbartonshire pupils attend.
“It’s not a one size fits all. Implementing the policy has some very big hurdles given the different way the schools are established and operate.
“There are 540,000 children attending private schools in the U.K. A 10% reduction in numbers is the lower end of estimates. Labour’s policy is based on estimates too.
“If folk want no private education on principle, I can accept that, but politicians shouldn’t lie about raising funds to hoodwink the public.
“There won’t be any extra money through this policy. Indeed if there is a substantial influx of kids into the state sector there will very less to spend on each child unless all of us pay more tax.”
* Graeme Mccormick from Arden, Loch Lomondside, is a prominent figure in West Dunbartonshire SNP.