If Independent Schools Come Under Sustained Attack From The Next Labour Government Could They Up Sticks And Move...

[sandyRoe]

...to somewhere like Brittany?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-30181920

[SirOracle]

Don't think the schools would get any subsidy at all if they relocated in France, Sandy.

[Svejk]

It would be a long way for Labour Ministers to visit their own kids. As an aside, if that Hunt ever gets his hands on education the teachers will look back fondly on their halcyon days under Gove.

[sandyRoe]

I don't suppose dealing with the independent schools will figure highly on Miliband's list of things to do in his first 100 days in office.

[Old_Geezer]

I don't know about attack. But I do know that an independent school is a business which provided elite education and so should never be offered tax breaks/subsidies/whatever. No amount of being helpful to a state school (which is a different thing and no connection) makes any difference to this basic obvious fact.

And if one wishes to claim the education is not elite then they ought not be permitted to rip folk off for the same education the rest of us are offered. Ans as an added bonus for correcting the situation, if independent schools actually pay their due that money could go towards improving State ones instead.

[woofgang]

OG, to me its like private medical insurance. people who pay for their children's private education are still paying to support state schools via their taxes and then they buy the education with money on which they have already paid tax. I agree that they shouldn't be able to set themselves up as charities or charitable trusts unless they actually are but its not unreasonable for parents who use them to get some kind of recompense for their tax contribution. And no I am not rich or "upper class"

[Old_Geezer]

Private medical insurance ? Yes, that should have no breaks either. Health needs. like education needs, should be available equally to all anyway and not something one can pay for something better for. If one opts to pay on top that's a private decision and not something societies coffers should suffer for. Totally inequitable.

[woofgang]

Private medical insurance has no breaks. people who pay for it contribute the same as anyone else to the NHS pot, PLUS they pay a tax on top of the cost of the policy,and draw out of the pot much less for it. I am really not sure why I shouldn't spend the money I have worked hard for on whatever I like including health, education or anything else that is legal.

[woofgang]

have just read the whole article, sounds like good old labour politics of envy to me....

[Retrochic]

We have private Medical Insurance as both OH and I are self-employed and need any medical interventions done quickly. We both pay National Insurance contributions and take nothing what-so-ever from the NHS. All our children have had Independent School Education and one is still there. We pay for the fees out of earnings that we have paid Tax on.Independent schools have charitable status ,as do all Religious Institutions.Independent schools have scholarships for less well off pupils . If the State wants to treat Independent Schools as businesses, then they should treat Religious Institutions as businesses too and make then pay taxes on the millions of pounds worth of Real Estate and Land they own.

[MaryDou]

All these so called Socialists think we are too stupid to know how many of them actually were educated in independent schools. Don't do as I do, do as I say!!!