Sunak V Starmer

Wwm2 you clearly don’t know much about public schools or their history.

ronib

When schools were set up by benefactors 400 years ago as in the case of the major schools private schools, the benefactors were not claiming tax relief as 400 years ago there wasn’t any.
The State has benefited greatly from not having had to fund education for hundreds of thousands of pupils for years and years.

400 years ago there was very little schooling - if any for the poor.

Free State education didn’t begin until just before the start if the last century.

So your hundreds of years simply don’t stand up.

They don’t seem to have matured much beyond a 13 year old.

A Conservative general election candidate has today quit after it emerged that he made lurid sexual comments about women.

Magistrate Sam Trask pulled out of the race to stand in Bridgend, Wales after it was revealed that he once boasted his favourite bra size measuring technique was “hand sizing them by feel”.

When schools were set up by benefactors 400 years ago as in the case of the major schools private schools, the benefactors were not claiming tax relief as 400 years ago there wasn’t any.
The State has benefited greatly from not having had to fund education for hundreds of thousands of pupils for years and years.

Well one of the requirements of an entity to meet charitable status is to benefit the public good as a whole.

Public good meaning sufficient level of the public benefit.

Charitable benefit should not allow or give rise to more than incidental benefit. NCVO

Not sure they meet that requirement. And to add insult to injury, those not able to receive the benefits for reason of lack of wealth, have to fork out through their tax to assist those who can afford to pay.

Ah, the plot thickens … the individual making the charitable bequest also gets a tax break as well as the private school charity! So what makes a private school a charity?

There are tax benefits for individuals from making charitable bequests.

I don't see how that alters the situation re schools being taxable charities

But being in receipt of a charitable bequest doesn’t bestow charitable status on a private school does it? Please can someone tell me what private schools actually do to deserve being termed charities.

Yes charitable bequests going back hundreds of years and at no cost to the taxpayers?

Can you explain how this works GSM? I’m not familiar with ‘charitable bequests’.

Many were endowed by charitable bequests.

Typo ‘an’ not ‘a’

What makes a independent school a ‘charity’ other than it’s a way to avoid paying VAT?

70% have charitable status, it means parents don't pay VAT on fees, can't claim the VAT back and can't make a profit, any surplus is ploughed back into the school.

Wyllow3

Interesting article that points out (amongst other things, which questions the basis on which calculations have been made)

www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/may/29/what-are-labours-plans-for-ending-tax-breaks-for-private-schools

"But, the IFS notes, it “should be remembered that pupil numbers in the state sector are expected to fall dramatically over the next decade and state schools might therefore welcome extra pupils moving from the private sector”.

I don't know where they get those figures from. The birth rate is falling but in 2020 it was at about the same level as 2003 (it rose between those dates). The children born in 2020 will be in school until 2038, so any fall in numbers will be tiny until then.

Precisely Willow👏👏👏

Interesting article that points out (amongst other things, which questions the basis on which calculations have been made)

www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/may/29/what-are-labours-plans-for-ending-tax-breaks-for-private-schools

"But, the IFS notes, it “should be remembered that pupil numbers in the state sector are expected to fall dramatically over the next decade and state schools might therefore welcome extra pupils moving from the private sector”.

Whitewavemark2

ronib

Wwm2 what did Starmer say then?

He was asked this question in the first tv debate. Sunak will pay for private healthcare to save a relative’s life and Starmer won’t.
Outrageous.

Sigh

This is my last reply.

You are entirely missing the point.

What he is saying is that if he becomes prime minister, and managing the NHS queues it would be morally wrong for him to jump the queue. It is a philosophical position. You might not agree nor like it but it is what it is. He is the same about private education.

Frankly it is the only answer that any sensible person would make because with regard to A&E, end of life, cancer, heart and paediatrics the NHS is second to none and in some cases certain treatment is only available in the NHS.

He isn’t preventing you from using either nor anyone else for that matter.

I think this has now been flogged to death so I’m over and out with regard to this subject.

Thanks Whitewave - you put it so well

A lot of private schools have charitable status, they may well rent the buildings from whoever but any surplus is reinvested, the staff of course get paid wages. There are no “shareholders” dividing a profit, others are endowed by a benefactor relying on income invested elsewhere to help fund the education.

MayBee70

Surely there needs to be a long term project the set up schools or departments in schools to help children with special needs. Does anyone know how such children are helped in other countries?

It's not as though those things don't already exist, MayBee. They do, but education has been underfunded for so long that they struggle to cope with the demands on them.

MayBee70

Surely there needs to be a long term project the set up schools or departments in schools to help children with special needs. Does anyone know how such children are helped in other countries?

I personally don't know but I bet my bottom dollar those countries will have a much better system than the chaos that has reigned in this country for decades.

Surely there needs to be a long term project the set up schools or departments in schools to help children with special needs. Does anyone know how such children are helped in other countries?

foxie48

TBH I've got really mixed feelings about this. Many of the small specialist schools are providing a service for children who are not well catered for in the state system and good special needs teaching can be very expensive because it can only be done with lots of staff. Some children need one to one teaching and having been chair of governors in a small rural school I know only too well that the state funding for these children is inadequate and to be blunt, they can and often do affect the quality of what is on offer to the other children. I think lots of people think independent schools are for rich parents to buy advantages for their children and some are but there are lots of parents who struggle to pay fees for their children because the local state school is not meeting their needs in some way.

Well, foxie48, I'm thinking back to the 70s/80s when parents of children with physical disabilities were putting pressure on government to end the way that these children were effectively 'ghettoised' into 'special schools', regardless of their potential.

Unfortunately, as with many government initiatives, the efforts of such parents to get their children into mainstream schools with provision for 'adjustments' to cope with their physical needs, led to the baby being thrown out with the bathwater and an expectation that all 'special needs' children should be educated in mainstream regardless of its suitability for them. Pressure on mainstream funding increased and though it was eased somewhat under the 1997 -2010 Labour governments, subsequent tory austerity caused much of the support to be withdrawn.

I firmly believe that state education should be much better funded, but it really boils down to political choices. If one has voted for a government that slashes public spending it's inevitable that needy children will lose out and that parents with the means to do so will pay for the support they need.

As far as the NHS goes I don't care if some use private provision provided there is a functioning efficient NHS service which treats people well and within a reasonable timeframe.
Sunak's party hasn't provided that. Hopefully Starmer will.