Labour-Supporting School Tax Report’s Author Admits Its Conclusions Are ‘Not Insightful’

Later today MPs will debate a petition titled: “Don’t apply VAT to independent school fees, or remove business rates relief” after it was signed by 114,946 people. Bridget is apparently too busy to show up and a Treasury minister will be sent instead…

Labour has relied heavily on the widely-cited “independent” Institute for Fiscal Studies report into private school VAT which predicts that “the change in private school attendance levels will be small” because they haven’t changed much in the last ten years which leads “to surer increases in tax revenues and less need for additional public spending on state schools” – all thanks to tax receipts of “£1.3–1.5 billion per year in the medium to long run” because only 40,000 children will switch to the state system.[…] Read the rest