Question to the Department for Education:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the impact of VAT on private school fees on international students studying at private schools in the UK.

The government estimates that in the long term steady state, 37,000 pupils will leave or never enter the UK private school sector as a result of the removal of the VAT exemption applied to school fees. This represents around 6% of the current private school population. More information is available in HM Treasury’s ‘Private school fees – VAT measure’ policy paper, which is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/vat-on-private-school-fees/ac8c20ce-4824-462d-b206-26a567724643.

Of those leaving or never entering the private sector, the government estimates an increase of 35,000 pupils in the state sector in the steady state following the VAT policy taking effect, with the other 2,000 either being international pupils who do not move into the UK state system, or domestic pupils moving into homeschooling. This state sector increase represents less than 0.5% of total UK state school pupils, of which there are over 9 million. This movement is expected to take place over several years.

Children of compulsory school age, which is broadly those aged 5 to 16, living in England are required, by law, to receive a suitable full-time education. This includes foreign national children and, if they are resident in the UK, they will normally have the right to attend state-funded and independent schools in England.