Fair Taxation of Schools and Education Standards Committee

Stephen Morgan Excerpts

Wednesday 11th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Morgan (Portsmouth South) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to have the opportunity to conclude this debate in support of the motion in my name and the names of the shadow Education Secretary and the Leader of the Opposition.

I wish to start by saying thank you—thank you to teachers, school support staff, school leadership teams and everyone who works in schools across the country. Their job can often be a thankless one, but it has been particularly difficult in recent years. The work that they do could not be more important and I hope that they know that they have our respect, our admiration and our support.

My hon. Friends the Members for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Cat Smith), for West Ham (Ms Brown), for Liverpool, West Derby (Ian Byrne), for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Emma Hardy), for Lewisham East (Janet Daby) and for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) have articulated the importance of this debate in raising educational standards for children in England’s state schools.

My hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood made powerful points about the value of quality teaching and the significant challenges of recruitment and retention and morale of the workforce. I know that she is a tireless champion for schools in her constituency and I thank her for her contributions today. My hon. Friend the Member for West Ham spoke with her usual passion and energy about the challenges that schools in her constituency are facing and the 12 years of failure by the Tories to tackle these issues head on.

My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby made helpful points about his continued efforts on food poverty and the political choices that the Government could make to transform children’s lives. My hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle robustly challenged those on the Government Benches on the views that they have expressed today, and I thank her for her consistent work on raising issues around oracy in this House. My hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham East helpfully shared issues in her area with regards to school funding and concerns about the impact that is having on the education of children in her local community.

Members of the Conservative party may be trying to airbrush their former leader out of history, but they cannot airbrush their record in Government. Over the past decade, the Conservatives have turned back the clock on education, with attainment gaps widening, teacher pay falling, SEND education broken, school buildings crumbling, and teacher recruitment and retention in crisis. This situation is not fair, it is not sustainable, and Labour will not stand for it. We believe that excellence is for everyone. Labour wants to raise educational standards across the country. We want to pay for teachers, pay for mental health support and pay for careers guidance to drive higher standards for the majority of children in all our state schools, The tax breaks that private schools enjoy must end. That is why we are asking all Members to support that ambition by establishing a time-limited, focused new Select Committee, to report by July this year, to look into how we end these tax breaks and invest that money in our nation’s schools.

Every parent wants the best for their children. We will not criticise any parent for the judgments that they make on how to do that—not now, not ever. But Labour wants to deliver the best for every child, in every school, in every corner of our country. This is simply about children’s outcomes: recruiting more excellent teachers to improve those outcomes; improving the mental health of our children to improve those outcomes; and revitalising careers guidance to improve those outcomes. While those on the Conservative Benches were busy last year each taking a turn at being the Secretary of State for Education, the Labour party was busy building a vision for the future of education. That means funding it fairly and properly.

Labour has set out how we will do that. We will use the money that is raised to drive up standards in every state school. We will do that: through a national excellence programme, recruiting thousands of new teachers; providing professional mental health support for every child; and ensuring young people leave education ready for work and ready for life, with professional careers guidance and work experience for all. As the shadow Education Secretary said earlier, this is what aspiration for our children looks like.

[Simon Hoare]

It all sounds absolutely fantastic, but the shadow Minister is hiding his light under a bushel. If that is not on his Labour party website and if his Leader has not mentioned education at all in his new year launch speech, how are we supposed to know about these things—telepathy?

[Stephen Morgan]

I would expect better of the hon. Member, but I am delighted that he is already looking at the Labour party website. I can send him the membership links so that he can join the party, too.

[Jonathan Gullis]

rose—

[Stephen Morgan]

I will make some progress.

Education is about opportunity—opportunities to learn and grow, to achieve and flourish, and to have happy and healthy childhoods. Governing is about priorities, and VAT giveaways to private schools show exactly where the Conservatives’ priorities lie. They lie not in helping every child to get a great state education, but in helping the wealthiest in society. A Labour Government would make fairer choices. They would do so by asking those with the broadest shoulders to pay their fair share.

[Jonathan Gullis]

I am incredibly grateful to the shadow Minister, who is a good man. He pointed out that some of the money raised would go into teacher recruitment. What specifically will Labour use that money on to drive up teacher recruitment? Will it be by carrying on the bursary scheme and adding more money to it—I signed off on the £28,000—or is there another system that I am not aware of that Labour thinks will work? What specifically will Labour do on recruiting teachers with this extra money?

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Morgan]

I am very happy to send the hon. Member the document, or I will gladly meet up with him when I am campaigning in his constituency next week to make sure that he is not returned at the next election.

As I was saying, Labour would require private schools to pay business rates, as state schools already do, and to pay VAT, as our colleges already do. In these extremely difficult times, with energy bills going up and pay going down, to ask the public to subsidise a tax break for private schools is inexcusable, and we are not talking about small sums.

Yesterday’s report by openDemocracy demonstrated further where the Government’s priorities lie. It found that private schools were handed more than £157 million in Government-subsidised loans during the pandemic, under a scheme that barred state schools from applying. This included elite institutions such Charterhouse, where the Chancellor went to school, which received a £5 million loan, despite declaring £45 million of income that year.

Those on the Conservative Benches, and even the Chancellor, have recently quoted figures from the Independent Schools Council saying that Labour’s policy will cause private schools to shut, and that thousands of pupils will leave the private sector. However, the Institute for Fiscal Studies found that those claims do not stack up. Although fees have risen significantly in the past 20 years, the proportion of pupils in private education has hardly changed.

The Education Secretary claimed earlier that the figures she cited did not come from the private school lobby, so can she be more specific? Did they come from the Treasury? If they did not, why do the Government not ask their own officials to look into this? Unfortunately, I think we all know why. It is because the Government would not like the answers they would get.

The Government’s position is not only wrong but unpopular. Recent polling shows that Labour’s plan has the country’s overwhelming support. The public are right to ask why private schools get tax breaks when state schools face impossible choices on what resources or staff members to cut, and it is not just voters who support Labour’s plans. As we have heard, many Government Members do too, even if they do not want to admit it. Let me share some quotes. In 2017, the current Minister of State, Department for Education, the right hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) said:

“It is not clear why private schools, many of whose costs to parents are literally in the stratosphere, should be regarded as charities. To what purpose?”

The current Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities said:

“Private school fees are VAT-exempt. That tax advantage allows the wealthiest in this country, indeed the very wealthiest in the globe, to buy a prestige service that secures their children a permanent positional edge in society at an effective 20 per cent discount. How can this be justified?”

I wonder whether those right hon. Members will follow through on those words and back Labour’s motion in the Division Lobby today.

In conclusion, after 13 years of Conservative economic mismanagement, which culminated in those on the Conservative Benches crashing the economy last year, tough choices must be made to protect the public finances. But the choice facing MPs today is easy. They can choose to spend £1.7 billion on tax breaks for private schools—not our figures, but those of the respected Resolution Foundation—or they can choose to spend it on teachers, mental health support for pupils and revitalising careers advice, so that our young people can receive that support across the country. I challenge the Minister and Conservative Back Benchers to vote for the motion today to ensure that every child in every corner of the country receives a brilliant state education, because excellence should be for everyone.