Would Labour’s plan to impose VAT on private school fees really raise £1.6 billion, as the party claims? Not according to a research paper by the education think tank EDSK. The £1.6 billion figure is often attributed to the Resolution Foundation, yet the original source, says EDSK, is a paper by the Fabian Society in 2011 – a paper which it says got its figures wrong in several different respects. It started with the assumption that there were, in that year, 628,000 pupils enrolled in independent schools. Yet this government figure did not just include pupils at fee-paying schools, but also children enrolled at academies and city technology schools. These were described as ‘independent’ because they were outside the control of local authorities. Moreover, it included children enrolled in pre-school education. Labour’s plan does not stretch to charging VAT on nursery provision.
A correct, updated figure for the number of pupils currently enrolled at private schools is 525,786. If

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