Starmer's sly dig over private school tax stirs up hornet's nest that could leave him stung

The Leader of the Opposition Sir Keir Starmer is having to adapt his approach to Prime Minister’s Questions for the third time.

With Boris Johnson and Liz Truss he was in his comfort zone as a prosecutor. The senior barrister and King’s Counsel and former director of public prosecutions painstakingly assembled the case against his opponents for their documented failures and personal misdeeds.

The sober family man Rishi Sunak with his commitment to restoring “accountability” in government presents a more difficult target. About the only thing that Starmer can hit him with is that fact that the prime minister is very rich.

He is the richest member of the government and perhaps in the Commons, largely thanks to his wife whose family founded the tech company Infosys.

At PMQs this week Starmer must have felt he had found a fertile line of attack when he opened up on the tax status of private schools. Opinion polls show consistently that only 10% of those surveyed think that they should keep their charitable status without further reform and with it exemption from VAT at 20% on school fees.

Since only 7% of children go to independent schools (rising to 10% at sixth form) Starmer must have calculated that most people were either indifferent or hostile to those who use them. He may be right. Labour’s intention to tax school fees was largely unremarked on in Corbyn’s manifesto at the last election.

But in drawing attention to his continued support for the plan and personalising his attack, Starmer has stirred up a hornet’s nest which could leave him with some stings. Education and what school you and your children went to are sensitive topics about which many people have ambivalent feelings.

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Starmer has insisted, high-mindedly, that Sunak’s wealth is irrelevant to their political battle. He defended the prime minister’s resort to a private GP on the grounds that many people go private for operations. Yet he spearheaded his main attack at PMQs this week with a sly dig at the expensive and elite private school which the prime minister attended and to which he has made a personal donation of £100,000.

“Winchester College has a rowing club, a rifle club and an extensive art collection. It charges more than £45,000 a year in fees,” Starmer informed the House. “Why did the prime minister hand Winchester nearly £6m of taxpayers’ money this year, in what his Levelling Up Secretary has called ‘egregious state support’?”

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Sunak responded by defending the government’s record on state education, but when Starmer continued to play the man: “Is that £6m of taxpayers’ money better spent on rifle ranges in Winchester, or on driving up standards in Southampton?” [where Sunak grew up] – the prime minister responded in kind:

“Whenever the Leader of the Opposition attacks me about where I went to school, he is attacking the aspiration of millions of hard-working people in this country. He is attacking people like my parents. This is the country that believes in opportunity, not resentment. He does not understand that, and that is why he is not fit to lead the country.”

Politics of envy rarely plays well for Labour

Starmer’s concentration on this topic was a significant development.

Since he became party leader he has been trying to reassure voters that Labour would not execute a radical Jeremy Corbyn-style jerk away from current policies if he wins the next election. Attacking private schools is red meat for Labour activists straight from Corbyn’s wish list, which may have little appeal to swing voters. It has also enabled the Conservatives to hit home with traditional counter attacks, alleging “class war”, which had hitherto bounced off Starmer.

It is little comfort to some in the Labour Party that Starmer seems to have been goaded into raising private schools by a sustained campaign against his plans in the Daily Mail, a relentless cheerleader for aspiration and scourge of the Labour Party. A veteran of the last Labour government bluntly criticised Starmer to The Times: “It was bold. Or as Tony used to say, bold but stupid.”

Whatever its merits, “politics of envy”, or being seen to oppose social aspiration, has seldom played well for Labour. If it worked Margaret “Let some grow taller” Thatcher would never have been prime minister for 11 years. Voters don’t seem to care much about where their leaders went to school either, otherwise Britain would not have had a string of Old Etonian prime ministers in David Cameron and Boris Johnson or indeed Tony Blair – educated at Fettes College, the poshest school in Scotland.

The economic arguments are not as clear cut as either Starmer or Conservative ministers suggest. For a start taxpayers do not “hand” £1.7bn a year to independent schools as Starmer claims. The Treasury is simply not raising that potential sum from taxes by not imposing VAT on schools registered as Charities. According to the Daily Mail, a “double whammy” also ending forgiveness on business rates could raise a further £150m.

Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, claims there would be no net gain to national finances because 90,000 of the 500,000 children now at independent schools would be priced out. Finding them places in state schools would cost more in already overstretched budgets than was raised.

He was using calculations commissioned by the Independent Schools’ Council, branded “lobbyists” by Labour. But Labour’s favourite counter research from the IFS is unconvincing. Luke Sibieta, an IFS researcher, says there was little drop in demand when fees went up by 23% between 2010 and 2020 .

Little evidence of antipathy towards private schools

A gradual rise over a decade is not the same as a one off 20% tax hike following a cost of living crisis. To complaints that private schools are being subsidised through the tax system, some parents reply that it is they who are subsidising state schools by paying their taxes for school places their children do not take up.

There is little evidence of widespread antipathy towards private schools. Only 10% were for keeping the tax exemptions in the YouGov poll. A further 24% thought private schools could keep them if they did more for state schools. Some 19% didn’t know.

Many of the bigger schools do provide facilities and expertise to the local community, under close scrutiny by the Charity Commission. One fifth of private school children receive assistance with the fees. The obligation and, perhaps, the inclination to do these things might disappear if charity status is abolished.

Instead of squeezing private schools and casting aspersions on those who attended them, it would be straight forward if Labour planned to ban private schools. There is an argument championed by Fiona Millar, Alastair Campbell’s partner, that this would be beneficial because all parents and children would be invested in a uniform state system.

But this is not Labour policy, nor could it be so long as Labour champions parental rights and choice embracing religious, specialised and grammar schools and home schooling.

These days many in Labour do not want to dwell on the issue at all.

Last century Charlie Falconer was appointed to the Lords because he could not find a seat to become an MP. Selection committees turned him down because he refused to take his children out of private school. One of those sons, Hamish, educated at Westminster School, is running to be Labour prospective parliamentary candidate for Lincoln at the next election.

Sir Keir Starmer’s old school, Reigate Grammar, became fee paying while he was there, although he was exempted. He would be well advised to rethink the role played by personal attacks in his sallies at PMQS.

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