Rachel Reeves backed campaign to abolish private schools

Rachel Reeves called for the abolition of private schools as recently as 2019 and backed a campaign to ban them, The Telegraph can disclose.

Labour’s shadow chancellor said independent schools “segregate children based on parental wealth” and “entrench privilege and divide communities”.

It comes amid criticism that Labour’s plans to impose VAT on school fees “as soon as possible” if it wins the general election are an attempt to launch a class war by the backdoor.

In a series of separate posts on Twitter from 2019, when Ms Reeves was a backbench MP, she said: “On private schools… my view is that we should work to abolish private education.”

She also voiced her support for a grassroots campaign called Labour Against Private Schools that called for them to be integrated into the state sector.

Ms Reeves said she was “proud to stand with” the group at its launch in July 2019. The campaign group, whose handle on Twitter is @‌AbolishEton, called for Labour to go beyond its commitment to start charging VAT on school fees and phase out private schools entirely.

The organisation, which has since changed its name to Integrate Private Schools, said the “ongoing existence” of independent schools was “incompatible with Labour’s pledge to promote social justice”.

The group successfully pushed for party delegates to support its motion at Labour’s 2019 annual conference, which called for “endowments, investments and properties held by private schools to be redistributed democratically across the country’s educational institutions”.

The party’s general election manifesto published two months later did not include the pledge. Jeremy Corbyn, then the Labour leader, instead promised to “close the tax loopholes enjoyed by elite private schools”, which remains the party’s current policy.

Labour Against Private Schools also urged the party to commit to limiting university admissions to “the same proportion of private school students as in the wider population”.

Other Labour MPs to endorse the campaign at the time included Ed Miliband, the party’s former leader, as well as Clive Lewis and Laura Pidcock, the former shadow ministers.

A Labour Party spokesman said Ms Reeves’ remarks did not reflect the party’s policy, but refused to comment on whether she still believed private schools should be abolished.

“This is not Labour policy,” the spokesman said. “Labour is committed to recruiting 6,500 teachers for our state schools by closing the tax loophole for private schools and ending the exemption for business rates and VAT.

“Under the Conservatives, our state schools have been neglected, classrooms have become overcrowded and children are paying the price. Labour will turn that around and open up opportunities for all children.”

A video of Ms Reeves from 2018, when she was promoting her biography of Alice Bacon, the former Labour MP, showed the shadow chancellor also saying she “will always oppose” selective schools.

In an interview with Comprehensive Future, which campaigns for “fairer school admissions”, Ms Reeves said: “I would like to see more children educated at comprehensive schools, and that means fewer children being educated at grammar and private schools.”

Gillian Keegan, the Education Secretary, told The Telegraph that Labour was “ideologically opposed to private schools”.

“They’ll say they’re not, but they ideologically will be very happy if they didn’t exist, even though a lot of them went to one and a lot of them sent their kids to one,” she said.

Labour hopes its proposal to start charging 20 per cent VAT on private school fees will raise £1.7 billion to spend on state education.

Experts claim that the most expensive private schools such as Eton and Winchester Colleges are likely to be shielded from the party’s VAT plans, either by being able to absorb the additional cost or passing it onto parents without fear of them leaving.

Meanwhile, smaller private schools say they have been forced to draw up sweeping cost-cutting plans to avoid passing on the extra charge in full amid concerns that it could deter many families.

The Independent Schools’ Bursars Association (ISBA) told The Telegraph on Monday that Labour’s policy would leave schools looking at “every level of their cost base” including considering lowering pension contributions.

While not a legal requirement, many private schools enrol their teachers into the same generous “defined benefit” pension plan used by the state sector.

But in recent years a growing number of private schools have taken their staff out of the Teachers’ Pension Scheme [TPS] due to spiralling costs – and Labour’s VAT raid could push even more to abandon the pensions.

David Woodgate, chief executive of ISBA, said the rises in employer contributions had already been “unaffordable” for many schools.

“We have around 500 schools that have already negotiated with their teachers in order to withdraw from teachers’ pensions or close it to new entrants, so offering a defined contribution scheme,” he said.

“Although you cannot say because VAT will be imposed schools will pull out [of the TPS], what you can say is schools will have to look at every level of their cost base, which will include pension cost, wage cost. Some schools may even have to look at redundancies. They may have to look at minority subjects which are not so popular and not so cost effective.”

Experts have also warned that a list of exemptions to Labour’s VAT plans on private schools is too narrow, with the party conceding on Monday that military families could be hit.

Labour has said state boarding schools will not be subject to the additional tax, nor will children with the most severe or complex needs in receipt of education, health and care plans.

But Jonathan Ashworth, the shadow paymaster general, refused to clarify whether military families would be granted an exemption.

Approximately 4,200 children of service personnel currently receive taxpayer support to attend private boarding school while their parents are posted overseas or in frequently changing roles.

Under the continuity of education allowance scheme, families have to pay at least 10 per cent of the fees themselves, but often more.

Asked if military families would receive an exemption, Mr Ashworth said: “We accept that it is not a decision that everybody agrees with but with the public finances in the state that they are in, we have to make tough decisions and we will levy VAT on private school fees.”

“The money from that will go to the vast majority of state schools.”

Pushed to clarify, he added: “We have outlined in our manifesto what our position is on VAT on private schools.”

The Independent School Council (ISC) has called for “urgent clarification” from Labour.

Julie Robinson, chief executive of the ISC, said: “Parents serving their country across the UK and overseas depend on independent schools to provide the educational stability their children need and deserve.

“These families urgently need clarification on whether their fees will be exempt from this planned tax on education.”