Ross Clark Ross Clark

VAT on fees? Our greedy private schools have it coming

The standard conservative response to Jeremy Corbyn’s proposal to impose VAT on private schools would be to attack it as as a policy motivated by class envy and dreamed up to please his party’s levellers — except that Michael Gove, too, questioned private schools’ charitable status a few weeks ago. Private schools might moan and groan, yet they have invited an attack on their charitable status by shamelessly pitching their product at the children of very wealthy parents – an increasing number of them from abroad. By jacking up their fees relentlessly they have priced many middle-class parents out of the market

Where 40 years’ ago private schooling was an option for a huge swath of the middle class, years of inflation in fees have steadily squeezed out one profession after another. Since 2007, the average day school has raised its fees by 59 per cent – a 29 per cent rise in real terms.

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