Yahoo News I went to private school, Labour's tax raid discriminates against hard-working parents
As parents we have the right to choose which school our kids attend.
Every year, local councils reveal the percentage of pupils who were awarded a place at their 'first choice', as mums and dads wait with baited breath to find out if their child has 'got in' to their chosen school.
While the majority are successful there are always some who miss out on their first choice school. And that minority is only going to increase thanks to Labour adding VAT to private school fees from next year, with figures showing that more than 3,000 private school students applied to join state schools between June and September this year.
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Between the ages of four and 18, I attended Westholme - an all-girls private school in Blackburn. While I appreciate the argument that the best education should be available to everyone - no matter what their parents earn - I don't see it as being any different to someone paying to go private in order to have a medical procedure done sooner than on the NHS.
The government's tax raid on private schools is a hypocritical and shameless 'easy win' which will alienate and discriminate against the hardest-working families.
It's inevitable that subjecting private education to VAT will result in bigger bills for parents who choose to send their children to an independent, fee-paying school. Not all parents whose kids go to private schools are millionaires and so this will hit those who scrimp and save in order to give their children what they see as the best start in life.
What I find even more galling is that, in the same budget, the government effectively reduced the duty on draught alcohol. How can the government make it cheaper to consume a harmful substance which costs the NHS billions of pounds a year while making it more expensive to send a child to a private school?
The hypocrisy is similar to the way in which duty on tobacco rises every year. If smoking is so harmful why not simply ban it? Ah, of course, because the government relies on the tax generated by sales.
And then you have to consider the children who are already at a private school but whose parents face having to pull them out mid-way through their education because they won't be able to afford the fees if schools increase them due to the VAT. If anything, the government's tax raid should only apply to 'new' pupils, not those who might be at a crucial stage in their school lives.
Last month the Independent Schools Council, which represents around 1,400 private schools, confirmed it will seek a judicial review of the government's policy, which will focus around claims of breaches of the European Convention on Human Rights.
The action will be brought around Article 14, the prohibition of discrimination, and Article 2 of the First Protocol, the right to education. And I for one hope they succeed.
Labour has already alienated itself from farmers who are furious at the inheritance tax changes - and their raid on private schools will only add to the anger of those hard-working people who feel they are being targeted.
