Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make an assessment of the potential impact of VAT on school fees on the shared provision of (a) SEND support, (b) sporting facilities and (c) SEND school transport between the independent and state school sectors.

The government’s ambition is that all children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) or in alternative provision receive the right support to succeed in their education and as they move into adult life.

​At the Autumn Budget 2024, the government announced a £1 billion uplift in high needs funding in the 2025/26 financial year, providing additional support and improving outcomes for the more than a million children in the state sector with SEND.

​​Most children with special educational needs, including most with education, health and care (EHC) plans, are already educated in mainstream state-funded schools. All state-funded schools support children with SEND. All children of compulsory age are entitled to a state-funded school place that is free for parents. Where a private school place is necessary to support a child with SEND, the local authority will fund it through an EHC plan.

​​Local authorities have a statutory duty for ensuring sufficient state school places in their area. Local authorities routinely support children who need a state-funded school place, including where private schools have closed or where pupils move between schools. The department does not collect data on in-year school applications or admissions, but where local authorities are experiencing difficulties in ensuring there are enough school places for children who need them, the department will offer support and advice.

​​The department expects all schools admitting new pupils in-year to provide them with appropriate support, including where they have SEND. Schools will need to work with their local authority where pupils have additional needs that cannot be met within the school.

Schools with charitable status are required to demonstrate public benefit to retain their charitable status and engaging in partnership activities with state-funded schools is one such way to do that. This may in some cases include the sharing of private school facilities, such as sporting facilities. The government does not expect the introduction of VAT to reduce a school's obligations to show public benefit or for partnership activity to decrease.

The department’s home-to-school travel policy aims to make sure that no child is prevented from accessing education due to a lack of transport. Local authorities must arrange free home-to-school travel for eligible children of compulsory school age, who attend their nearest school and would not be able to walk there because of the distance, their special educational needs, disability or mobility problem, or because the nature of the route means it would be unsafe for them to do so. Schools are not required to arrange home-to-school travel for their pupils, but some choose to do so. We do not expect the removal of the VAT exemption on independent school fees to have an impact on the provision of home-to-school travel for children with SEND.