CATHEDRAL and choir schools that provide for special educational needs will be “severely affected” by the new Government’s pledge to scrap the VAT exemption for independent schools, the Bishop of Southwark, the Rt Revd Christopher Chessun, has warned.
The impact would be “disproportionately severe” for small schools, he argued.
Currently, independent schools do not have to charge VAT on their fees because there is an exemption for the charitable supply of education. In its election manifesto, however, the Labour Government pledged to scrap this exemption. This is due to apply from January.
Speaking in the House of Lords last week in a debate on the subject, Bishop Chessun said that the Government had “a well-evidenced belief that parents purchase an economic and social benefit for their children’s future through private schooling”, and that, while there was an “undoubted premium placed on forming character or the excellence in pastoral care that some of these schools exhibit, the Government nevertheless have a mandate for change”.
The girls’ and boys’ choirs at Southwark Cathedral — drawn “almost entirely” from state schools — would be unaffected, he said, and “a number of schools in my diocese offering provision for special educational needs and disabilities have their places funded by the local authorities.
“But there are cathedral and choir schools, and private schools, with provision for special educational needs that will be severely affected by the change that the Government intend. Many of these are small schools, and therefore the impact will be disproportionately severe.”
The Lords briefing on the debate states that 20 per cent of pupils in this sector receive provision for special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). This, the Bishop said, was of “undoubted public benefit, but of these, only 6.9 per cent have an education, health, and care plan. This suggests that there is a significant element of special-needs provision that is currently covered by private funding, and which cannot be absorbed by local education authority budgets if private places become unaffordable.”
If small- and medium-sized schools that offer SEND provision became unviable, he continued, “the general SEND capacity in the country, already overstretched, becomes yet smaller.”
He asked the Government whether removing the exemption “at such short notice” in January 2025 allowed enough time to adjust budgets.
Concluding, he urged the Government to approach the debate with “much greater sensitivity” about the “adverse and unintended consequences. . .
“There is the distinctive yet gloriously diverse world of cathedral and choir schools, which continue to safeguard and feed the English choral tradition. They are intimately bound up with their localities, drawing choristers from a wide social background, and have a very significant impact on the choral and musical life of this nation.”
He referred to one example: “A 100-per-cent bursary fee remission for local children who are very talented musically but whose parents cannot afford any fees, with numerous other pupils who are in receipt of 75 per cent or more remission — the focus now being on remitting fees, rather than on awarding scholarships, to increase social inclusion.”
The debate was brought by the Conservative peer Lord Lexden, who argued in his introductory speech that the exemption was being brought in with “extraordinary haste”, and would have “serious and far-reaching consequences”.
Independent schools did not, he said, “enjoy some kind of special exemption from tax that they do not deserve. The truth is that all those who provide educational services have always been exempted from VAT, as they should be. . . The current tax regime has helped independent schools to thrive.”
He was linked to the Independent Schools Council, representing about 1400 schools, and the Independent Schools Association, representing 670 schools. Some of the smaller schools had only 200 pupils, he said.
“They include performing-arts schools, bilingual schools, and many special-needs schools. They cater for the children of hard-working local parents who have struggled to have their needs met in the state sector. Many are virtually unknown outside of their local communities, where they are highly respected.
“The . . . comparatively small number of large, well-known schools — Eton, Harrow and the rest — which exert so much fascination over the media . . . are the exception, not the rule; they constitute no more than ten per cent of the total.”
Baroness Smith of Malvern, the Education Minister and a former Home Secretary under Gordon Brown, said that the Government would continue to have “an important and constructive relationship” with the two bodies. “But some people listening to this debate might have thought that the intention was to completely do away with the private sector.”
She continued: “Private education is not an option for most . . . people and, unlike the last Government, we will not build public policy around the expectation that public services will fail our children.”
Lady Smith insisted that the effect of the fee changes had been assessed, and that analysis suggested that not all parents would face 20-per-cent higher fees, and that pupils would not move.
On SEND provision, she said: “There is excellence in the private sector in independent special schools. Such excellence is the reason why . . . that place is paid for by the local authority. The local authority will have the ability to reclaim the VAT placed on that fee; so there will be no impact on the parents of those children with the most acute special educational needs.”