Christian schools UK fear closure due to VAT levy: "Unjust and discriminatory!"
30-01-2025
Western Europe
Cornelis Boon, RD
Children sitting in a classroom with their teacher. Photo iStock
Western Europe
The introduction of 20 per cent VAT on school fees for private schools threatens the existence of Christian private schools in the UK.
"Unjust and discriminatory", Stephen White from Bradford in Yorkshire says about the VAT levy that took effect from 1 January. The 40-year-old bookseller says he cannot afford higher school fees. Now he has been forced to withdraw his four children from Bradford Christian School and homeschool them. "As Christians, we believe it is our duty to raise children in accordance with our beliefs. This measure denies us this right and that is why we are challenging it in court."
White is not the only one worried about the VAT levy recently introduced by the government. Christian public schools in the UK are also struggling with it. "An existential threat to the survival of our school," headteacher Caroline Santer of The King's School in Hampshire calls the measure. Public schools do remain subject to a tax exemption. Not fair, Santer and White think. With other headteachers and parents, they are challenging the measure in the UK Supreme Court.
The impact
The currently ruling Labour party has long talked about introducing VAT on private education. With the measure, the party says it is working to make overpriced boarding schools such as Eton College –where children of Britain's aristocratic elite attend classes– more unattractive.
According to education minister Bridget Phillipson, "tax breaks for private schools are a luxury we can no longer afford", she wrote in an opinion piece in The Telegraph in December. Some 60 per cent of Britons support VAT on private education, polls show.
The Institute for Fiscal Studies calculated that the sales tax could raise London between 1.3 billion pounds and 1.5 billion pounds a year. Finance Minister Rachel Reeves promises that "every penny" of the VAT levy will be spent on improving public education. For instance, the government plans to recruit 6,500 teachers. There is a severe shortage of qualified staff for subjects, such as maths and physics, in secondary schools.
Private education
Private education –which has the image of serving mainly young gentlemen with fancy black shoes– is then an easy cash cow. There are about 2,500 private schools in the UK, teaching about 7 per cent of all British pupils. The schools have more freedom than state-funded schools and do not follow the national curriculum. Some of these schools are very prestigious. Eton College and Harrow School, for example, which each charge up to 50,000 pounds in tuition fees per pupil per year.
Not every public school is one where only young ladies and gentlemen from well-off families or children of expats are taught. Although the average tuition fee is around 15,000 pounds a year, students with special educational needs also attend private schools. Mainstream education does not offer them suitable education. And there is another category: small, religious schools.
Christian private schools in the UK are partly run by parents who voluntarily take on a variety of teaching tasks. Teaching staff almost always work for the statutory minimum wage. Moreover, poorer schools receive substantial financial support from churches – which provide accommodation for free or at low cost. These Christian schools can then charge low fees from parents.
Hitting parents hard
Now that there will be a 20 per cent VAT levy on top of that fee, it is hitting Christian parents hard, says Steve Beegoo, director of the Christian Schools Trust, an umbrella organisation of private Christian schools. He calls it particularly worrying for lower-income families and for parents who have children with special educational needs. Beegoo: "The only way to get Christian education with Christian teachers is through private education. Parents pay for everything themselves and also contribute to public education through taxes."
"The vast majority of our pupils are not from affluent backgrounds," says Caroline Santer in a statement from The King's School. The King's School is a Christian educational institution with 231 pupils in Hampshire. According to her, parents make "huge financial sacrifices in order to send their children here".
The VAT levy is not the only extra cost the government is imposing on parents sending their children to private schools. A new property tax is also being introduced, national insurance contributions have been increased and the legal minimum wage has risen. “Good for the teachers; not so good for the Christian schools and the parents who have to pay," says Beegoo.
More costs
The Telegraph recently calculated that about a fifth of all private schools –including Eton College– will fully pass on the new VAT levy to parents. On average, parents with children in private education would have to pay 14 per cent more tuition fees, the British newspaper calculated. Indeed, many private schools are not impecunious and take on some of the extra costs themselves.
How different it is for Christian private educational institutions? They often have few financial resources and certainly no buffer. Neither does The King's School. "We have no reserves to cover this and have to pass on the VAT rate in full to parents," says Santer. Including additional costs, the levy causes some private Christian schools to charge 30 per cent more in tuition fees, Beegoo explains.
"We don't know how many parents will manage to pay the extra tuition fees and whether people will now have to go into debt", Santer said.
Ben Snowdon, headmaster of Christian Emmanuel School with 63 pupils in Derby, also fears that the 20-per cent increase in school fees will be too much for some families. "We already charge 4320 pounds per child per year from parents. Paying more simply does not work for many."
Legal action
"Discriminatory," Beegoo says about the government's measures. "Putting an extra burden on Christian families –who are not among the privileged rich and send their children to Eton– is unfair. This measure punishes lower-income parents who send their children to private religious schools."
What makes it even more distressing is the fact that religious private schools teach proportionately more children with special educational needs. Beegoo: "Those pupils and parents are hit extra hard."
These are the reasons why four Christian school heads including Santer and Snowdon as well as nine parents are going to take legal action at the highest level.
With a judicial review by the UK Supreme Court, they want to enforce a review of VAT. The 13 claimants are being assisted in this by the Christian Legal Centre (CLC) – a legal organisation that supports Christians in court cases.
Closing doors
Lawyers from the CLC argue that the introduction of the VAT rate on private education is in direct violation of the European Convention on Human Rights: it violates the right to protection against discrimination as well as the right to education that is in line with the religious beliefs of pupils and parents.
Here's the lawyers’ reasoning: VAT penalises low- and middle-income Christian families. They can no longer afford to send their children to special education or cannot take out loans to do so. Basically, by levying VAT, the government is thus denying parents the right to educate their children based on Christian values, they say.
In addition to the application for a judicial review, supported by the CLC, two other legal cases against the government's VAT levy are pending. One, supported by the Independent Schools Council (ISC) –with 1,400 member schools the largest umbrella body of private schools in the UK–is being urgently heard by the High Court. The application for a judicial review, supported by the CLC, may be coupled with the two already pending cases, including that of the ISC.
Meanwhile, distress is running high at some private educational institutions. Five UK public schools recently decided to close their doors due to the VAT levy. At the start of the 2024-2025 school year, the ISC reported that, on average, public schools have seen a nearly 2 per cent drop in enrolments. The umbrella organisation attributes this mainly to the VAT levy, although experts say the falling birth rate and cost of living also play a role.
The London government expects that up to 40,000 students from private education will eventually be forced to switch to public education due to higher costs. Across the UK, around 550,000 students are taught in private schools, of which around 370,000 are in religious schools.
"Because of the increase in school fees, some parents have already withdrawn their children from our school," Santer of The King's School knows. However, this is not an easy choice, explains CLC director Andrea Williams. "Many Christian parents are cutting back on other spending and saving wherever they can to send their children to a school in line with their religious beliefs. They see hostility to Christianity in public schools, where gender ideology is promoted, other views on sexuality are taught and other religions are touted."
"Christian parents find it impossible for their children to attend state-funded schools," says Beegoo. So, for many of those parents, only one option remains: private Christian education, or if they cannot afford it: homeschooling.
Over 40,000 pounds VAT levy for Melville-Knox Christian School in Glasgow
Very small religious schools are hardly affected by VAT. Businesses with less than £90,000 turnover per year do not have to pay VAT in the UK. "Some religious schools are so small-with a few pupils, one or two teachers working at minimum wage and a teaching room rented from the church-that the recent measures do not affect them," says Steve Beegoo, director of the Christian Schools Trust, an umbrella organisation of cooperating private Christian schools.
Two of the three schools affiliated to Melville Knox Schools, a network of Christian schools in Scotland, do not have to pay VAT for this reason. They are the school in Achnagarron –above Inverness– and the school in Aberdeen. The school in Glasgow –with 90 pupils– does exceed the limit of 90,000 pounds turnover per year and will have to pay VAT of up to 50,000 pounds in total next year.
"For my eldest son, I have to pay 1,500 pounds a year in school fees; that will be 300 pounds more because of the VAT levy", says principal John Cormack of Melville-Knox Christian School in Glasgow, who has two children at the school. "For our parents, fortunately, the impact is limited."
Still, Cormack does not have a good word to say about the government measures. "This is cultural Marxism from a government that wants to control education and undermines parents' responsibility for their children. Behind the VAT levy is a godless, anti-Christian agenda," he says.
This article was translated by CNE.news and published by the Dutch daily Reformatorisch Dagblad on January 25, 2025
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