Labour Plan to Tax Private Schools to Pay for Free Meals in Tatters

Jeremy Corbyn’s plans to impose VAT on private school fees to pay for free meals for all primary school pupils have unravelled after questions were raised about the evidence used to justify the policy.

The Labour leader will say this morning that the universal roll out of free meals will boost the health and educational attainment of all children while ending a “subsidy to the privileged few”.

He will point to research showing that offering universal access to free school meals improves pupils’ productivity, enabling primary school pupils to advance by around two months on average.

Angela Rayner, the shadow education secretary, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “The evidence from National Centre for Social Research and the IFS have both been quiet clear that actually providing universal school meals at primary level will raise attainment.”

However, one of the co-authors of this report told the same programme that they had found a “slight improvement” on pupils’ attainment, but “we certainly do not know if this impact will replicated nationwide”.

Their 2012 report was based on a pilot in primary school pupils in Newham and Durham.

Asked if they had been able to prove the link between attainment and free meals, Lorraine Dearden said: “We definitely concluded that we needed more work.

“While we found that there was a slight improvement in attainment, we struggled to find the mechanism by which this took place.

“Questioned on whether she believed the report justified rolling out the scheme nationally, Ms Dearden said: “It would be overstating it by quite a bit and in the report we said this is very, very expensive to roll out nationally- we estimated around 1billion a year.

“We weren’t able to identify the mechanism by which this was working and whilst we were reasonably confident that in pretty deprived areas this seemed to have an effect, we were very careful to say more work needed to happen before you would roll this out.”

The announcement will be seen as an attempt to regain the political initiative following rows over the party’s poor showing in the opinion polls and allegations of anti-Semitism against Ken Livingstone.

“No child in the UK should go hungry at school. By charging VAT on private school fees, Labour will make sure all primary school children, no matter what their background, get a healthy meal at school,” he will say at a launch event in Lancashire.

“The next Labour government will provide all primary school children with a free school meal, invest in our schools, and make sure no child is held back because of their background.”

Mike Buchanan, chair of the The Headmasters’ and Headmistresses’ Conference, said the proposals would hurt “hard working, dual income families who are working very hard”.

The Independent Schools Council (ISC), representing private schools, said Labour’s proposals did not add up and would force some smaller schools to close.

“A third of pupils at our schools are on reduced fees and are from families where both parents work hard to pay the fees,” said ISC general secretary Julie Robinson.

“If this measure was introduced smaller independent schools may close, driving more children back to be funded in the state system. 600,000 children are educated in independent schools, saving the taxpayer the cost of educating them.

“Independent schools are fully aware of their social responsibilities and offer free and reduced cost places to children from lower income homes.

“They also partner with state schools to offer support with sciences and languages, A-levels and university access, as well as sport and music.”

Labour will say the provision of free school meals also improves the health of pupils through better nutrition – with over 90 per cent of pupils who have a school lunch consuming food or drink containing vegetables or fruit compared with just 58 per cent.

Children in reception year 1 and year 2 already get free school meals and Labour said that extending the scheme to all primary school pupils had been estimated to cost between £700 to £900 million a year.

The party said that an estimate by the Fabian Society in 2010 suggested that introducing VAT on private school fees could raise around £1.5 billion annually.

Mark Littlewood, Director General at the Institute of Economic Affairs said: “Free school meals provision is already a poorly targeted policy and extending it to all primary school children would be an unacceptable waste of taxpayers’ money.

The scheme will end up subsidising middle class and affluent families who don’t need the help, while those who are struggling to make ends meet will feel very little benefit.

A Conservative spokesman dismissed the plan saying: “Labour would wreck the economy if they ever got back into government – meaning there would be less money to spend on our schools, not more.

“Their economic incompetence means this promise isn’t worth the paper it’s written on.”

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