Charging VAT on private school fees

It's relevant if the claim is that higher fees will result in a long term exodus from private schools. We know from existing data that this isn't the case; private school fees have grown far beyond inflation while real wages have stagnated, yet private school enrollment has remained remained roughly the same. While a 20% increase would be instananeous and larger than any prior year-on-year increase, it doesn't change anything if the question is about the long term impact.

Can you show me your source for the 50% (whatever it was) increase in school fees in real terms?
This is what google is saying and is completely contradictory to what you're saying:
'The average annual senior day school place in 2022 cost 416,485, up 13 per cent in real terms since 2012. The average annual sixth form day school place in 2022 cost £16,875, up 11 per cent in real terms since 2012. The average annual junior day school place in 2022 cost £14,481, up 10 per cent in real terms since 2012.' Seems to me that 50% is a very long way off.
As for your last point: I've researched this and most schools are hiking fees by 15% from the previous year - they either have to pass the VAT on to an extent or make significant changes to staff's fees, class sizes, renovations, etc.

Here is the source for the 50% figure. Having checked again, it seems to apply to private schools in London only and dates from 1991 to 2016. Fees were approximately £5,000 in 1992 and £15,000 in 2016, which is an above-inflation increase. If the fees kept with inflation then they would have risen to about £8,000 (you can check this using a UK inflation calculator). In London at least the fees have risen 87% higher than they should have done if they kept with inflation.
More broadly, this article cites an IFS report: "the number of private school pupils has been largely stable in recent years despite what it says was a 20% real-terms increase in average private school fees since 2010, and a 55% rise since 2003." and adds further comment about how this has not affected enrollment.

Blaming the entire Conservative Party for the idiocy of Liz Truss is a pretty pathetic thing to do.

I think it does make a difference to the long term impact. Firstly because you have some private schools simply having to permanently close because they can’t deal with the instantaneous increase of that amount, and secondly because even in the long term, the fact will remain that not all of the money that parents are paying is going to the school. So fees will be persistently higher than what the market forces of supply and demand would be dictating, and so demand for places would persistently be getting reduced artificially.

If I remember correctly, the VAT will instigate a 2% spending increase in state schools (although it seems likely that state education will struggle in the short-term due to an influx of pupils). I think this figure will be lower once the influx is accommodated for. Imo, a 1-2% increase over an expected 50000 students displaced is not close to worth it.

I think some people want to just punish private schools - in which case this will cause some serious damage to the private sector.

I do have to add however that government money does need to come from somewhere - and maybe VAT on private schools is the first step?

Then I’m for it if it’ll increase spending in state schools.
I am skeptical about trying to recruit 6500 new teachers however. I think that the working conditions of some current teachers need to be improved first and some teachers are just crap so quality should also be important rather than simply numbers.

How many private schools, as a proportion of all private schools, have or will have to permanently close because of the instananeous increase in fees?
I'm not sure I understand your second point. If private schools passed the 20% onto the parents then, yes, the money that parents would have to pay would not entirely go towards the school... but I'm not sure why this would affect demand?

Ah ok.

For the second bit, yeah I agree as employing 6500 more teachers and keeping them, while maintaining others is a bit unrealistic.

I'm not sure I understand your second point. If private schools passed the 20% onto the parents then, yes, the money that parents would have to pay would not entirely go towards the school... but I'm not sure why this would affect demand?

The aim of this is to try and eliminate private education and leave only government schools. That is so socialist, you could stick a goatee on it and call it Lenin.

How many private school students, as a proportion of students attending private schools, fall into either of those categories?

I’d be surprised if they actually want to eliminate private education entirely. They’re educated people (privately educated, in fact), so they should understand perfectly well that the existence of private schools is of massive benefit to the public purse.
More likely, it was just intended as a populist policy designed to win over voters by scapegoating the nebulous “rich” for paying for something that they would like to have, but can’t afford. Hence, “politics of envy”.
And it seems to have worked. I’ve seen no shortage of comments like “my heart bleeds” and “maybe they should cancel their Netflix subscriptions” from people who support this policy. It seems they’re just glad to get one over on private school children, without thinking or caring much about how they themselves (or the education system / economy more broadly) will be affected by it.

Potentially between 10-20%.
Source: https://www.azets.co.uk/news-insights/articles/vat-imposition-on-private-schools-could-lead-to-closures/
When a school increases fees of its own accord, the main reason is because demand is exceeding supply. In these circumstances, most businesses would produce more of whatever they are selling, but it’s more difficult for schools to just increase spaces spontaneously. So raising fees by just the right amount (to the “equilibrium price”) helps reduce demand so that it just about balances with the supply of spaces, generating additional revenue whilst ensuring the school still fills its capacity. (This is why, so far, it has resulted in pretty much no reduction in the number of children attending.) Since most private schools operate as non-profits, this extra revenue is then reinvested into the school. It goes towards things like expansion, scholarships, and subsidies for future fees, leading to gradual increases in both supply and demand, keeping up with population growth so the percentage of children attending private school remains stable.
The effects of applying VAT are very different. When this happens, there are two main effects. (I've described them as two extreme ends of the spectrum just for simplicity, but in reality it will be some combination of both).

Either way, the tax results in supply, demand or both being reduced to below the school's natural capacity, resulting in fewer children attending the school than otherwise would have. This is fundamentally different from the discretionary price increases of the last two decades, which have acted to balance supply and demand at the natural capacity, resulting in maintenance and steady growth of the number of children who can attend. In short, VAT would result in a long-term “exodus” from private schools even if the previous fee increases did not. It’s only the size of that exodus which remains to be seen.
PS. This is actually one of the main purposes of taxing things in the first place. It’s not just a way for the government to collect money, it’s also intended as a way to inhibit people from buying and selling the thing that is being taxed. This is why you see extra taxes being applied to things the government wants you to buy less of e.g. alcohol, cigarettes, car fuel, sugary drinks, and second homes. Whereas when they want you to buy more of something, they remove the default taxes and might even subsidise it beyond that e.g. for purchases related to things like clean energy, health, charity and education. It used to include private school education, but that’s exactly what is changing now.

Well about 25% of the students in year 13 at my local private school. But obviously I don’t know about other schools. Surely even if it is a small number it still matters?

The website you've linked doesn't provide a source or explanation for the figure other than "...based on our analysis", so it doesn't seem like a particularly trustworthy statistic.

It isn't necessarily true that historic fee increases have been because demand exceeded supply, or that an "equilibirum price" had indeed been met (i.e. that parents would be unwilling to pay for higher fees). So I cannot see how the introduction of VAT would necessarily lead to a long-term exodus from private schools.

It's the petty act of vindictiveness that permeates the socialists mindset. The idea that someone has something better that they have chosen and are willing to pay for - this makes socialists so hateful and jealous that their recourse is to seek to destroy it.
Because that's what it is. They know full well that the tax is meaningless. It won't raise much in terms of revenue, and will probably mean several schools closing down and a bunch of people losing their jobs - and then you'll have a few thousand kids having to go to state schools....but no extra money to facilitiate that. This is a purely punitive measure.
The idea that this is a tax-break is absurd. Following this exact rationale, there is no reason on earth not to have VAT on university fees. University, if anything is far more selective than school.

The argument that demand for private school tuition may fall due to price increases is certainly possible and indeed there are some signs to that private schools are cutting back on partial scholarships for those of lesser means so the non-Old Boys private schools are clearly concerned.
With that said, while I agree with T that this policy is just the mark of a greedy state and the politics of envy (we should be expanding private school access for the children of the working poor), I actually doubt that most private schools will suffer a financial impact due to international demand for a British private education. People are perhaps unaware of just how many Indians and Chinese want their children educated here and are willing to pay.
In the long run then the people that lose will be native children, the children of the middle class who no longer get as big a scholarship ECT.. and are forced to endure a state education in which they are treated as C grade factories (or whatever the number is now).

It’s produced by a reputable advisory firm so I highly doubt they’d have plucked an unreasonably high figure out of thin air. It’s the best source of a numerical estimate I can find on the issue, but you’re welcome to provide a better one containing full details of the underlying analysis if you like.
It doesn’t need to be “necessarily true”. I’m sure that not every single penny of price increase took place for this reason and this reason only. The point is that it is still a significant driving factor for how prices are determined on the whole; this is how supply and demand works for private businesses in general. So on the whole (even if it’s not universally applicable to every single child at every single school), it’s perfectly reasonable to expect VAT to result in an long-term exodus of some size. The fact that previous discretionary price increases did not have the same impact means very little in this context; they’re two totally separate issues with different implications for supply and demand.
This is why even the most highly optimistic of estimates (from the IFS, the source that Labour is citing) is that the exodus would be between 3-7%. Even then, the IFS acknowledges that this is based on “thin and sparse” data. The medium-case scenario estimated by the Adam Smith Institute is between 10-15% (in which case it would raise pretty much no net tax revenue at all). And in a pessimistic scenario (25%) it costs the tax payer around £1.6 billion overall.
Source: https://www.adamsmith.org/news/applying-vat-to-independent-school-fees-could-cost-as-much-as-16-billion?format=amp