Neil O'Brien
MP for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston · Conservative · United Kingdom
“Following is the full text of the petition: [ The petition of residents of the constituency of Harborough, Oadby & Wigston, Declares that the petitioners oppose any proposal to extend the boundaries of Leicester City Council in a manner that would incorporate the communities of Great Glen, Wistow, Newton Harcourt and Little Stretton into…”
“In the Government’s own consultation about the expansion of Leicester, nine out of 10 people said that they were against it. Now, with millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money wasted so far, Ministers are having to do a complete reworking of this whole chaotic, undemocratic process, amid accusations of gerrymandering.”
“The petition states: “The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to halt and reconsider any proposals for the expansion of Leicester City Council's boundaries, and to ensure that the views of local residents are fully considered before any changes are implemented, thereby protecting the character, ide…”
“The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to halt and reconsider any proposals for the expansion of Leicester City Council's boundaries, and to ensure that the views of local residents are fully considered before any changes are implemented, thereby protecting the character, identity and independence…”
“In the Government’s own consultation on whether to expand Leicester, nine out of 10 people said no. Tens of thousands of people signed petitions against it, yet until Ministers hit this legal snag they tried to press on anyway.”
“Eleven thousand people in Oadby, Wigston and Great Glen recently voted in a referendum against joining the city of Leicester. Ministers know that people do not want this locally, and yet they are forcing it on them anyway.”
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“One firm that is really worried about this—Bolt Burdon Kemp—told me: “This will really impact social mobility into sectors like law, accountancy, and consulting. The traditional route into law is expensive and therefore without the apprenticeship scheme many would not be able to afford to do so. We also believe it will have a wider detrimental impact on the reputation of apprenticeships.” That is right: by putting what might seem like the top of the pyramid on the system, we add to the prestige of the whole system. British Airways used to talk about the halo effect of Concorde: it changed the airline’s whole brand and the way it was seen more generally. Level 7 apprenticeships, as well as being useful and remunerative in their own right, also change the way apprenticeships are seen, in a way that all politicians have wanted for decades.”
“It says that “removing Level 7 apprenticeship funding will mean that fewer UK training roles are created. Instead, organisations are likely to turn to offshoring to replace UK training roles”. The Chartered Management Institute states, of its profession, that “cutting funding for level 7 apprenticeships would risk creating gaps in leadership and technical expertise at a time when business and the public sector need them most.” I have been contacted directly by firms that are worried about the abolition of the solicitor apprenticeship, which is a great way into the law, particularly for people from less privileged backgrounds, but more generally for people who do not want to run up a large amount of debt at university and instead want to earn and learn.”
“Like the NHS, local government makes substantial use of level 7 apprentices, including for the extra town planners that the Government say are needed to deliver on their housing targets. Deborah Johnston, the deputy vice chancellor of London South Bank University, says: “Over half of the employers we work with…on level 7 apprenticeships are local authorities. Our apprentices enable councils to deliver projects in the wake of increased demand and reintroduced mandatory housing targets. The suggestion that, as employers, local authorities should step in and pay for the level 7 apprenticeships themselves is fanciful.” Outside the public sector, the professions are also worried. The Institute of Chartered Accountants has said that axing level 7 apprenticeships will lead to work leaving the UK altogether.”
“Again, the NHS workforce plan proposes to increase the total number of nurses by 170,000, so that the number reaches 550,000 by 2036. The plan set the ambition that 28% of nurses would come through the apprenticeship route—so about 50,000 of that 170,000. Of those, around a quarter—23%—of NHS nursing roles are at “Agenda for Change” band 7 or higher, which typically requires a master’s degree or equivalent. We would therefore expect around 11,000 of those extra nurses to be coming via level 7 apprenticeships. Getting rid of them would create a big hole in the NHS’s workforce plans. These are all specialist nursing qualifications that we need, such as school nursing, health visiting, advanced clinical practice and community nursing.”
“Aside from the fact that we have taken out a route to the top professions for a group of people who might otherwise not be able to access them, it means that there will be a shortfall of around 2,000 medical places a year by 2031. The long-term workforce plan set out the need for 15,000 medical school places by 2031, of which 13% were going to be through apprenticeships. But the students who have already started on the medical doctor apprenticeship have been left in limbo. That is the Government’s statement of intent: they have already done in the level 7 doctor apprenticeship, and I am concerned that as part of the review, which is about to be published any day now, they will do something similar to nurses.”
“Restricting level 7 apprenticeships will disproportionately impact on public services. For example, nearly half of chartered management apprentices, who are nearly all at level 7, work in the public sector. Dan Lally, the head of skills and employability at Sheffield Hallam University, said level 7 restrictions will “disproportionately impact on public services…We are meeting vital skill gaps in disciplines such as Advanced Clinical Practitioner...these are NHS workers, civil servants and local authority employees. A high number of our L7 apprentices...come from the areas of highest deprivation”. To give a specific example within public services, level 7 apprentices are absolutely central to the NHS’s own long-term workforce plan. Last year, we saw the Government’s very disappointing decision to cancel the level 7 doctor apprenticeships.”
“Of those who answered the Department for Education’s own apprenticeship evaluation in 2023, 48% of level 7 apprentices were first-generation students; their parents had not been to university. They were the first generation in their family to get university-level postgraduate qualifications, in their case not by going to university but via the apprenticeship route. We finally made it a highly prestigious route; we really did treat level 7 apprenticeships the same as university degrees. Somone could go all the way to the top of the ladder using apprenticeships rather than going to university, and yet the Government were initially talking about axing pretty much all of them. The rhetoric seems to have been slightly tempered, and I hope we can temper it further. But they are still looking at axing some prestigious things, hence amendment 7.”
“They are also trying to redistribute money from level 7 apprenticeships into other things, and they have repeatedly refused to rule out doing the same thing to level 6 apprenticeships. The level 7 apprenticeships that the Government are planning to axe account for about 9% of apprenticeship spending, and about 7% of all starts. They are not a huge part of the system, but they are a big part, and a lot of good things will potentially be lost by abolishing them. Over the last seven years, almost 123,000 people have started a level 7 apprenticeship—that is a postgraduate level apprenticeship—with 24,000 people starting one in the last full year of the Conservative Government. It was ramping up quickly.”
“We have already mentioned the things this Government are doing that are not good for apprenticeship numbers: the £25 billion increase in national insurance at the Budget and the potential move of 50%—or some other number—of apprenticeship levy funds into other things. It is perfectly legitimate to argue that that is desirable, but it will not be good for apprenticeship numbers—once we find out what that number is. To address the gap that Ministers are creating with the Budget and their decisions on moving money out of the apprenticeship levy to other things, the Government are doing two things. They are doing shorter apprenticeships; as my right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire pointed out, that is an echo of the old traineeships that did not work out so well.”
“For decades and decades, politicians have stood up and said that they wanted to make apprenticeships, and technical education generally, more prestigious. Parity of esteem—we have heard that speech a million times. The last Government did things to push in that direction. We have already talked about the move from frameworks to much more rigorous standards, with independent examinations at the end. That was part of it, and the other part was the growth in the number of higher apprenticeships. The number of people on higher apprenticeships went up from just over 3,000 in 2010 to 273,000 last year. That is a huge increase.”
“I beg to move amendment 7, in clause 9, page 4, line 13, at end insert— “(c) the impact of the exercise of the relevant functions on the provision of level 7 apprenticeships in England”. The Government are completely reversing the direction of apprenticeships policy. Where we lengthened apprenticeships, they have cut the length of an apprenticeship to eight months. By abolishing IfATE and bringing it in house at the Department for Education, they are eroding independence and employer ownership. Where we grew higher apprenticeships, they are planning to abolish many or maybe even most level 7 apprenticeships, which have been carefully built up over recent years. Amendment 7 would require a report on those level 7 apprenticeships.”
“If the Government actually want to prop up the system and offset some of the other things that they are doing, they probably will go after level 6 apprenticeships. But whenever we ask this in the Chamber or elsewhere, and say, “Will Ministers rule out kiboshing level 6 apprenticeships in the way that they are with level 7?”, we never get an answer. I invite the Minister again today to rule out axing level 6 apprenticeships in the way that they are doing with level 7. I am very keen that we put this amendment to a vote. It is not good enough to say, “We are so evidence-led”, but then do something that is hasty, secret and is being advised against by many experts in the sector.”
“I think Ministers hope that it will move the resource to level 2 and 3 apprenticeships, and there is a perfectly good argument for trying to do more at those levels. That is why we brought in the 100% funding for small and medium-sized enterprises, for example, and we could go much further on that. However, as numerous organisations and academics have pointed out, if we kibosh level 7, the first place that the money will probably go to is level 6. That is why we keep asking Ministers, without ever getting an answer, to rule out doing what they are planning to do to level 7 to level 6 as well. That is where the real money is; I think it is about 36% of all the funding, compared with 9%. I might be wrong about the exact numbers, but it is roughly that.”
“It seems like a strange argument, in response to a clause that requires the production of more evidence, to say, “It is all fine because Skills England will be so evidence-led.” That is the entire point of our amendment. I do not think the Government want to talk about what they are planning to do on level 7 apprenticeships, nor did we hear any attempt to describe what will, or will not, be done as part of the review from the Minister. Sometimes the silences in these discussions are as telling as everything else. Quite a few of the organisations that are warning about the axing of level 7 apprenticeships also make the point, which I think is true, that this proposal will not do what Ministers hope.”
“I would be delighted to. I hope that we will get an answer on that point about level 6: is the Minister going to rule out kiboshing level 6 in the way that she is doing with level 7?”
“I thank the Minister; I think that very clearly did not rule out the Government doing exactly what are doing to level 7 apprenticeships to level 6. It was not quite phrased in that way, but clearly Ministers are keeping their options open. Given that Ministers are clearly looking to keep their options open, not just on level 7 but on level 6—which is very concerning, a backward step, and a real wrecking ball to a lot of the cross-party progress that has been made on apprenticeships over the past decade or more—I am even more keen that we have at least the report on the impact of what they are doing to level 7, so I am keen to put this amendment to a vote. Question put, That the amendment be made.”
“He thought that we would have what was promised in the King’s Speech—a Skills England Bill to set up the new, independent Skills England as a proper arm’s length body. I will not rehash all those things here, but I encourage the Minister to give us a sense of what she thinks the big opportunity is going to be, and what she will do as a result of the creation of Skills England.”
“Other than saying, “It will be more joined up and we will look at everything together at a high level,” is there a specific thing that Ministers are hoping to do off the back of that machinery of government? This is a big thing; the Government’s impact assessment says that it will lead to delays and a fall in starts. Ministers could say that that is acceptable because there is some big prize at the end of the road, but what is the big prize? I will not repeat all the quotes I have read out from former Labour Ministers and Labour peers in the other place worrying about what one of them called the lack of the second half of this Bill—the lack of the bit where we get to the setting up of Skills England. In particular, Lord Blunkett said that this was not quite what he expected.”
“It is very easy for Ministers to say, “We are going to bring everything together, it will all be in one place and we will have a great, coherent view over the whole system.” That is hard to object to in principle, but what are they minded to do as a result? Is there a big opportunity? Is it some new category of qualification, or some overlapping of qualification? They say they are going to look at everything together, which the DFE already does. There is a Department that can give an overarching view, and there is the centre of Government that can bring together the views of all the different Departments, so what is it that Ministers really hope Skills England can offer? The Secretary of State will provide this report six months after Royal Assent, but I am interested in hearing from the Minister what she sees as the big opportunity.”
“To be honest, it is less me who should worry about that and more Ministers, because I do not get from the proposals any great clarity on what they hope Skills England will do or how it will operate. Some degree of protection could be offered not just for employers, but for Ministers. This could offer some degree of insulation from these choices, so that the process does not become entirely politicised, but we have not yet got that. I hope that this report will be positive and the making of it will encourage the Government to clarify their thinking on what they are trying to achieve and how these new institutions in the DFE will work. We will return to this issue on new clauses 1 to 3, so I will rest my remarks there, other than to ask the Minister for a sense of what she really sees as the big opportunity.”
“Clause 9 has been included because of the level of disquiet about the Bill in the House of Lords. There was literally not even a mention of Skills England in the Bill when it was introduced. We will return to this issue when we debate new clause 1 from the Liberal Democrats, and our new clauses 2 and 3, in which I seek to put Skills England on to a statutory footing, or at least to put more of a clear legislative framework around it than we have currently. All we have at the moment is this report, which is pretty thin—I will not vote against clause 9 standing part, because it is better than absolutely nothing—and the framework, which, again, is very thin.”
“This is an extremely sensible amendment, which we welcome. Although I am not a liberal, one of the great strengths of the liberal tradition is its knee-jerk suspicion of centralisation. The Bill represents centralisation in many different ways. It takes lots of brakes off, and we keep hearing in our sittings that, “We must get rid of this or that form of scrutiny because we must move quickly.” The hon. Gentleman is right to be nervous about that and about the lack of limits to the consequentials off the back of the Bill. I support the amendment and hope that the Government will accept it.”
“There is nothing to stop such large changes being made off the back of clause 10. That is one reason why we are keen on the amendment. One sees Henry VIII clauses and one cannot quite imagine how they would be used, but that is a problem because we never know what will be done under them. Will the Minister check whether my understanding is correct that the Government could do such big things off the back of clause 10? If that is not the case, I would be delighted to hear it.”
“I have a specific question. Skills England does not bring the whole skills sector together. There are other excellent bodies, for example, the Migration Advisory Committee, which has a skills component. Other bodies, such as the Construction Industry Training Board and the Engineering Industry Training Board, impose levies and have not been merged into Skills England or abolished. The Government have rejected the Farmer review’s recommendation to merge the CITB and EITB. I therefore wanted to check something with the Minister. My understanding is that the Government could use clause 10 to abolish the CITB and the EITB. I do not see any reason why they could not do that. The Minister may want to get advice about that—I appreciate that I am putting her on the spot.”
“Will the Minister heed those warnings from a sector that is very worried about the Government’s plans by protecting level 7 construction apprenticeships from the planned cull so that less well-off people can get top-level jobs in these very important professions? I hope the Minister can answer some of these questions today, but if not, I hope she will write to us.”
“Fourthly, what assessment has the Minister made of the extraordinary joint appeal by the Royal Town Planning Institute, the Royal Institute of British Architects, the Chartered Institute of Building and the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors for level 7 apprenticeships in the built environment to be exempt from the Government’s plans to cut level 7 apprenticeships? Those organisations say that they are “deeply concerned” by the Government’s plans and that cutting level 7 apprenticeships in this sector will be bad for upskilling existing workers and will be particularly bad for access to the profession for less well-off people.”
“The Secretary of State for Education has recently talked about allowing 50% of funds to be spent in that way. Other things equal, of course, we will end up with fewer apprenticeships if we take a lot of money out of apprenticeships. What is the Government’s assessment of the impact of allowing employers to take 50% out of their levy funds to spend on non-apprenticeships in, for example, construction? What will that do to the number of apprenticeship starts and participation? There is an overlap between the apprenticeship levy and the CITB levy for firms in this industry. If, for example, it turns out that employers are allowed to take out 50%, what would that do to the number of apprenticeships in construction? I ask not least because the CITB has identified apprenticeships as a key route into the sector.”
“The Farmer review noted that the CITB had delivered useful training, but “it is not delivering the level of strategic forward thinking, scale and pace of influence or tangible bottom line impact that the industry now requires”. Specifically, the review said that the CITB had too little focus on upskilling the existing workforce, did not police well enough how levy funds were used, and needed a clear, modular, unitised system of qualifications. Can the Minister say anything about her emerging thinking on the future of the CITB? A third question is about the growth and skills levy. The Government have said that they will allow employers to take funds out of the current apprenticeship levy to spend on things that are not apprenticeships.”
“I have some questions I would like answered today. I appreciate that it can be difficult for Ministers to answer everything in these short debates, but I would be very grateful if the Minister undertook to write on some of these issues if there is no time to answer today. In its briefing for this debate, the CITB explained that £143 million, or more than 12% of all the funds raised from the levy over the lifetime of this Parliament, will be spent on “running the business, including grant and levy administration”. That equates to about £28 million a year. Does the Minister think that kind of share—£1 in every £8—is appropriate? If not, what share would be appropriate? My second question is about the Government’s emerging thinking on the CITB.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Allin-Khan. This statutory instrument effectively kicks the can down the road for a year while the Government come to a decision on the CITB’s future. That is obviously not ideal from the sector’s point of view, but I can see that it gives the Government time to think. The Opposition thank Mark Farmer for his thorough and very frank review, and for his analysis of the big challenges facing the sector in building a proper skills pipeline. His recommendations for a “fundamental reset” were very clear, including merging the two remaining ITBs into a single workforce planning and development body for both construction and engineering, supported by a statutory levy. The Department for Education has already said in response that it will not merge the two ITBs.”
“One reason why England’s schools rose up the international league tables in recent years is that they spent more time on core academic subjects such as English and maths. Having fallen sharply under the last Labour Government, the share of pupils doing double or triple science at GCSE has also gone up from 70% to 98%. Can the Minister reassure the House that time will not be taken away from the core academic subjects, and that their content will not be cut back, as a result of the curriculum review?”
“I completely agree with the hon. Member for Hampstead and Highgate (Tulip Siddiq). What is displacing reading for pleasure among children is smartphones and social media, including in schools. The Department for Education’s own behaviour survey found that nearly half of pupils in years 10 and 11 report that in most or all lessons, mobile phones are being used when they should not be. The guidance is not working, so why are the Government continuing to block our proposals for a proper ban on smartphones in schools?”
“Labour’s plan says that the early years must be the top priority, but a survey by the National Day Nurseries Association finds that nursery fees are going up by 10% on average because the Government are not compensating nurseries for the cost of the national insurance increase. Will the Government rethink that decision, which the Early Years Alliance has described as “catastrophic”, or will it be just another example of a tax on working people?”
“This is part of our culture”—but education is good for our culture as well. I will come to an end. There is uncertainty about the fiscal impact of this measure, but there is no uncertainty about it causing a lot of misery for parents with special needs kids and for parents who do not want to have their kids’ education disrupted. The Government are doing this for political reasons. There is no doubt that this is not the best way to raise revenue; this is a purely political decision and it is having significant, real-world, bad effects on our constituents right across this country.”
“In at least 27 authorities, schools are full in certain age cohorts and, since Labour announced this policy, pupil number projections in the state sector have been revised up nationally—significantly so in many local authorities. That means fewer people in the state system will get their first choice of school. Although there is uncertainty about the fiscal impact of this policy, there is no uncertainty about it not being the best way to raise revenue. The other day, the Chancellor announced the introduction of a special new business rates relief for the film industry, even as the Government take away business rates relief for schools. The argument is, “The film industry is good. This is an investment in our future”—but schools are an investment in our future. The argument is, “This is good culturally.”
“The Government have often countered that not many pupils will be affected. We hear about the small percentage of pupils who will move, and how easy it will be for the state sector to accommodate them. We hear much less about how much extra that will cost, and we have heard nothing from the Government about the 10,000 fewer children in independent schools I already mentioned. The official impact predictions for VAT estimated that 3,000 pupils would leave this academic year; now we have seen 10,000 in the first term. There are still five months until August, so it may get worse before the year is out. If the number of pupils leaving the sector continues to run at three times the predicted levels, we would face not just—“just”—35,000 pupils displaced, but more than 100,000. In many cases, they will struggle to get a state school place.”
“Schools that have merged and reduced in numbers include Headington and Rye St Antony; Orchard House and Chiswick and Bedford Park; and Westbury House and the Study schools. I read those out because, as well as the number of children who will move into the state sector and have their education disrupted in that way—which seems to be much higher than the Government predicted—a huge number will have their education disrupted even if they end up in another independent school. That is precisely what is happening to a lot of parents in my constituency because of local closures. The Government will say that those children are privileged; I say they are children. Being forced to change schools and perhaps being separated from friends is disruptive and bad, whoever they are.”
“Schools that have closed include Hemdean House school, Abercorn school, Portland Place school, River House Montessori school, Alton school, Conifers school, Kilgraston school, the Study school, Ursuline preparatory school, the Hampshire school, St Joseph’s preparatory school in Stoke-on-Trent, Wings school, Argyll House, Chartfield school, Gracefield preparatory school, Lawrence House, North London Rudolf Steiner school, Redbourn Park secondary school, Sheiling school, the Copper academy, the GFC school, the Prepatoria school, Ashcroft school, Downham preparatory school, LIFE Wirral Sports school, Iona school, Brighton Waldorf school, Progress Schools, Summit school, Advance Education, Tashbar boys nursery, Maidwell Hall school near me in Northamptonshire, Loughborough Amherst school, Godolphin prep in Salisbury, the Village school for girls in Camden, Highfield prep in Maidenhead, Oxford House school in Colchester, Carrdus school in Oxfordshire, Bedstone college in Bucknell and Fairfield PNEU school in Backwell.”
“It is therefore not the case that the education tax is unlocking some great funding bonanza for those of us who have got our kids in state schools. In fact, I see that the National Education Union has recently relaunched its “Stop School Cuts” campaign. There are 43 schools that have closed or announced closure since Labour came to power, and many of them have explicitly pointed to the education tax as the thing that tipped them over the edge.”
“On the other side of the ledger, what do we have to show for it? The Government occasionally try to claim that the money is ringfenced for some purpose or other, but of course the truth is, as the Minister knows, that there are no ringfences at the Treasury. In the troubled schools Bill, we see measures that will unwind the educational reforms to state schools that propelled England up the international league tables. The Institute for Fiscal Studies says that, over the last Parliament, per pupil spending in mainstream schools rose by about 11% between 2019 and 2024 when adjusted for inflation. That is an 11% per pupil real-terms increase, but for this coming year, the IFS has pointed out that state schools’ costs are going up faster than their income, with costs up 3.6% and funding up only 2.8%.”
“That is worth about £5 million for Eton, but nothing at all for lots of smaller schools that are less well resourced—and some of them are not well resourced. I think of a small Christian school in Leicester, which got in touch with me because it was so concerned about this. Its income per pupil is probably below those of the neighbouring state schools, its fees are low, the teachers could get paid a lot more elsewhere and the parents are definitely not rich. Why do those people do it? They do it because it is a labour of love, and it is a labour of love for others, too. There are all kinds of reasons that children end up in the independent sector. Maybe it is their special needs; maybe it is faith; maybe it is to do with language; or maybe it is a particular educational approach that works for their child. In a word, this is pluralism.”
“Some 10,000 fewer pupils are in independent schools already, according to the September 2024 ISC pupil numbers survey. The drop was largest in the transition years, with a drop of just over 4.5% in year 7 entrance. The Government want to present all the parents who end up sending their children to independent schools as incredibly wealthy, but according to analysis by Diarmid Mackenzie, around 90,000 families who use independent schools are on below average incomes. They will be the ones who are most affected, and independent schools will become more exclusive. The hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Alison Taylor) talked about the ability of schools because of this change to reclaim historical VAT on capital spending.”
“She had been living in intensive care, and once she came out, she had only eight months left at her old school because she was in year 11. Her father raised her plight with the DFE, and he says of the letter back from Ministers: “I could have smashed my head against a wall when I got that letter, I was so angry and upset. It’s so heartless.” The Government claim that this is a great and vital revenue raiser, but in reality, that has always been highly uncertain. The rate at which it will shift pupils into state education is hard to predict, and the effects of this large group of children with SEN moving makes it even more uncertain. Pupil movement out of independent schools is already three times higher than predicted, as has been noted in the debate.”
“There was an example recently of how this is playing out just over the border from us into Lincolnshire: a girl was forced to move school because her parents could not afford the new tax, and the council has now gone from paying nothing to spending £8,200 a year of taxpayers’ money to transport her a long way to the nearest school that can take her. Some of these cases are profoundly sad. There was a report in The Independent recently about a girl who was hospitalised for eight months last year with a rare brain condition, which left her needing a very high level of support and unable to cope with the change of school placement. The daughter had attended a private school, which her dad says they had just about afforded, but the 20% charge on top made it unaffordable.”
“This is one of the big challenges created by the education tax: if a significant chunk—maybe not even a big chunk—of that 100,000 or so children with special needs but no EHCP are taxed into the state system, that will be a huge new load on a special needs system that has already seen demand explode over recent years. Councils are already struggling, and will have to do more assessments and find even greater resources. We know that 100,000 figure from both the Government’s own data and the ISC’s census, but behind every statistic is a real child.”
“The other common reason that my constituents end up paying twice over for education is that their child has some sort of special needs. They first pay the tax, then they do not use the service that they paid for and then they pay again themselves to get what they think is the right thing for their child. Parents know what the EHCP system is like and they can see the ever-rising demand, so instead of adding to that demand they pay up themselves out of their own pocket. They are content to make sacrifices to get the care they need for their child and their special needs. Independent schools educate more than 130,000 pupils with SEND, of which around 100,000 do not have EHCPs.”
“In my constituency on the edge Leicester, we benefit from lots of different types of people, but particularly from second-generation communities who really value education. I see whole extended families in my constituency coming together to spend what money they have not on fancy cars or luxuries, but on school. In the biggest independent school in my constituency, Leicester grammar, probably the most common occupation among parents is to be a doctor working in the NHS, and being a doctor is still a very common dream for the pupils there, too. Education has these wider social benefits, and I am struck that the Government praise these people one minute and then wallop them the next; one minute they love them, and the next they hate them.”
“I note that they are able to find billions and billions to fund their bizarre payment to Mauritius to take our own territory off of us, but even if I could not think of anywhere that the Government could save some money—and I can—my advice would be that, if they want to tax people who have more money, they should tax people who have more money, rather than taxing education. The problem with taxing education is that it catches people who are not rich; it catches people who are sacrificing so much to invest in education. That is unselfish and has wider social benefits. If the Government wanted to tax fancy cars or holidays, or meals out or something like that, I would at least understand, but taxing investment in education is a mistake—and starting it halfway through a school year makes it worse and is vindictive.”
“But under this Government, schools are being hit by a triple whammy of VAT, business rates and higher national insurance. Even some Government Ministers have their doubts about this. The Chief Secretary to the Treasury, no less, told the girls at Redmaids’ high school in 2022 that he opposed his party’s policy on taxing independent schools and said that it would not bring in what his own party was claiming. What an extraordinary thing for the Chief Secretary to have said. As the Labour hon. Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Dr Huq) said, the Government are doing exactly what they promised they would not do by raising tax on working people. The Government’s claim is that they need to find some money.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Lewell-Buck. We have had some superb speeches on all sides of the House today, starting with my hon. Friend the Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont) who led us brilliantly. I thank the nearly 115,000 people who triggered this debate by signing a petition against the education tax, and particularly those who are here today. There is a good reason why all previous Governments of all colours have avoided taxing education. It is hard to imagine a Tony Blair Government doing what this one are now doing. In fact, we know that he slapped the idea down hard when it was suggested. Likewise, Clement Attlee did not do it, and nor did Harold Wilson or Jim Callaghan. The rest of Europe does not do it.”