Labour will not apologise for wanting the best for children in state schools

It’s not often that the Labour Party has a reason to be grateful to the Daily Mail. But we should thank them for giving us the chance in recent weeks to tell the public again about our plans to drive up school standards across our country – by taking away the tax breaks enjoyed by private schools and investing that money in state schools.

Keir Starmer took the opportunity to do just that at Prime Minister’s Questions a couple of weeks ago. “Why did the Prime Minister hand the likes of Winchester nearly £6m of taxpayers’ money”, Keir asked. “When down the road from Winchester, in Southampton, four in 10 pupils fail their English or Maths GCSE?” The Prime Minister spat back that Keir’s remarks were an “assault on aspiration”.

What an insult to parents of state school pupils across this country who dream of a better future for their children and work to help them achieve it. Does Rishi Sunak believe that only parents that send their children to private school aspire for their children? It is offensive, it is wrong, and it sums up so much of what is wrong with the Prime Minister, his party and its 12 long years in government.

Labour knows that every parent wants the best for their children. We will never criticise them for the choices they make to achieve that. Not now, not ever. But we will also not apologise for wanting to deliver the best for every child in our state schools. Through ending private schools’ VAT and business rates exemptions, we’ll create new opportunities and support for children across state schools. The Tories know the truth about these tax breaks. They knew it back in 2017 when their manifesto promised to review private schools’ charitable status if they didn’t give more support to state schools. 

As Robert Halfon said at the time: “It is not clear why private schools, many of whose costs to parents are literally in the stratosphere, should be regarded as charities. To what purpose?” As well he might ask. In reality, many schools offer little to no support to state schools or cite community outreach activities to justify their charitable status. And to cap it all, fees are still rising far beyond most families’ ability to pay – outstripping inflation and earnings year on year since 2005, when leading private schools were caught in a fee-fixing scandal.

A succession of Tory MPs – and even the Chancellor – now howl in protest that hundreds of private schools will shut, that tens of thousands of pupils will leave the private sector, putting pressure on state schools. But they’re howling at the moon, because there’s no good reason to expect that removing tax breaks would have a serious effect on the numbers of pupils leaving the private sector. Not my analysis, but that of the respected Institute for Fiscal Studies.

And the Tories’ position is not only wrong, it’s unpopular. Recent polling shows Labour’s policy is overwhelmingly backed by voters. Why should private schools keep tax breaks, the public ask, when funding for state schools has become so precarious that headteachers are now begging parents of state school pupils to give them money to keep the lights on?

Labour is not prepared to tolerate a system that gives tax breaks to a few schools and doesn’t deliver high standards for every child, in every school, in every corner of our country. So, yes, we’ll end those tax breaks. We’ll use the money to deliver the new national excellence programme, recruiting thousands more teachers, putting more mental health support in every school and offering more professional careers advice to ensure young people are ready for work and ready for life.

And that is just the beginning. Because Labour is the party of aspiration for every family and ambition for every child, the party of excellence for everyone.