Labour will strip private schools of a £700m tax break over the next Parliament unless they do more to support the state sector, the shadow education secretary has said.
Tristram Hunt told Sky News that there was a “Berlin Wall” in education, dividing the most and least privileged children – and accused independent schools of failing to remember their “charitable obligations”.
“It is simply not the case that all private schools are earning their keep – this public subsidy of £140m a year that they get from relief of local business rates,” he added.
“What the Labour party is saying is ‘look you’ve got this subsidy, earn your keep, step up to the plate, make sure you are involved with local schools and are not hiding away these resources and privileges behind closed walls’.”
He said he wanted to see private schools sharing facilities with state schools, helping children win places at top universities, running summer schools, offering sports coaching and so on.
Labour would give them a chance to enter partnerships through which they could do that, or take their tax breaks off them.
Mr Hunt said he was “struck” by the comments of Andrew Halls, the head of King’s College School, in Wimbledon, London, who said fees were being driven up by an “endless queue of wealthy families from across the world”.
As a result many had become “finishing schools for the children of oligarchs”, according to the head teacher.
The private sector hit back saying that 90% of schools were already involved in “meaningful and effective partnerships”.
Barnaby Lenon, chairman of the Independent Schools Council, added: “Independent schools generate £4.7bn in tax and save the taxpayer a further £4bn, equivalent to building 460 schools, by educating children out of the state school sector.”
Source Article from https://uk.news.yahoo.com/labour-warns-private-schools-over-tax-break-114410546.html
Labour Warns Private Schools Over Tax Break
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