Budget Oct 24 Thread

I to cannot see how taxing the luxury of a private education is a bad thing.

Yes, there might be a few people on the cusp of affordability who have to make some difficult choices, but it makes for a fairer system overall.

Anyway. Beer.

Yesterday I could not see how knocking a penny off a pint of beer would help folks out. You would need to drink a hell of a lot of beer to enjoy that saving! However it then dawned on me that the saving is in no way going to get passed onto the consumer. So how will it help hospitality out? There are 88 pints in a keg (slightly less in a cask) so under a quid will go into the licensee coffers per keg. So your small and independent pubs would likely not be much better off as a result either. Bigger chains would see the most benefit here.

So it comes back to what is the point? Other than being able to say ‘we cut the price of beer’.

I think you’ll find he already does.

Not VAT though.  That kind of semantics is daft.

My employer charged VAT on my hourly rate, why should they pay corporation tax?

My employer paid VAT and corporation tax, why should they pay NI?

My employer paid VAT and corporation tax, and NI, so why should I pay NI and income tax?

I paid income tax, why should I pay VAT on a product from another company who employs someone, etc, etc, etc.

So it comes back to what is the point? Other than being able to say ‘we cut the price of beer’.

There wasn’t one, it’s all about the optics (pun intended).

If a pub landlord has the audacity to actually turn a reasonable profit, the brewery* will just increase their rent.

*frequently these days not even a brewery anymore, see the Marstons news this month.

[If you missed it, Marstons sold their share of their joint venture company with Carlsberg to Carlsberg in order to focus on the more profitable side of hospitality, being the landlord’s landlord].

Yesterday I could not see how knocking a penny off a pint of beer would help folks out. You would need to drink a hell of a lot of beer to enjoy that saving!

Maybe it was a challenge? One which I am happy to accept 😀

Poor you having such a chip on your shoulder.  Bet you’re a Labour voter too.

No chip merely pointing out the privilege of being able to afford £10,000 + per year on top of your basic household outgoings.

Willing to bet that child is going to be bullied in that school too – as if the parents are scrimping then they’ll not have all the latest shiny tech or clothes & when they come & collect them in an old car – the rest of the kids will know that one is poor. Pretty sure that’s not a good thing to be in a private school.

A lot of people on this forum need to realise just how much privilege they actually have.

Yesterday I could not see how knocking a penny off a pint of beer would help folks out. You would need to drink a hell of a lot of beer to enjoy that saving!

It doesn’t help the punter – it helps the publican stay in business. Only slightly, obviously, but it’s better than duty going up (which it has, a lot, recently under the Conservatives)

If a pub landlord has the audacity to actually turn a reasonable profit, the brewery* will just increase their rent.

Couldn’t give a crap about this tbh. All tied pubs are shite, the only useful function they serve is to keep the rabble out of the freehouses that I frequent!! 🙂

@benz

If they can afford private school then they can afford to live in an area with good state schools and even supplement with private tutoring if they’re desperate for their child to get good grades.

Most private schools are just status symbols anyway, they don’t actually achieve better outcomes than good state schools.

But mainly, if there always needs to be a victim, surely in this case it’s the kids who have no choice but to go to the bad state school, so isn’t the moral priority to make sure funding is available to improve the state school?

We aren’t privy to the person’s financial situation and I don’t think that Eton has been mentioned.  fwiw I’ve known a few folk that sent their kid/s to private schools.  In one case both parents worked full-time plus they both had sideline businesses that they worked on in the evenings and weekends.  One car, no holidays, a very frugal lifestyle that many would find miserable.  A small local school and there were other similar ordinary families trying to make ends meet.  Certainly didn’t come across as a privilege, it looked exhausting and stressful.

What I do disagree with is what’s happened with VAT.  Don’t believe there was any justification for that nor the swift, spiteful implementation.  Typical Labour, pretending to be serving the common man yet Starmer has already been working on his latest grift following a visit to No. 10 by Larry and Bill.  What a dream team.

My 2p on the impact of the budget on cycling: https://singletrackworld.com/2024/10/thin-pickings-for-cycling-in-uk-autumn-budget-announcement/

Willing to bet that child is going to be bullied in that school too – as if the parents are scrimping then they’ll not have all the latest shiny tech or clothes & when they come & collect them in an old car – the rest of the kids will know that one is poor. Pretty sure that’s not a good thing to be in a private school.

A lot of people on this forum need to realise just how much privilege they actually have.

Some on this forum also need to recognise how narrow minded, bitter and jealous they appear to be on basis of their comments around another impact of budget changes on some people – just because it does not resonate with you, does not make it any less real.  Who mentioned bullying?  And yes, I suspect there are many who do recognise, that in comparison to many, our lives are relatively privileged and do not seek to consider others to be below them or envious of the multi-millionaire who lives in the next street, etc.

If they can afford private school then they can afford to live in an area with good state schools and even supplement with private tutoring if they’re desperate for their child to get good grades.

Most private schools are just status symbols anyway, they don’t actually achieve better outcomes than good state schools.

Sweeping generalisation surely?

What is your view on those who attend state schools, get good grades and progress to completing value add education at University?

So your small and independent pubs would likely not be much better off as a result either.

Duty on supermarket beer will continue to rise as well don’t forget. Pubs are now competing against supermarkets, and every little tweek of taxation in favour of hospitality is welcome.

Oh, people are still trying to justify a tax break for sending your kids to private schools? It’ll seem like a bonkers idea once the new status quo has settled down. Campaigning to try and bring back that tax break won’t come across well in a couple of years time.

The more interesting and less trailed change is private schools now having to pay the same NI contributions for their staff that state schools do. About time.

Why is it whenever a rightwing argument is invoked by a rightwing person do they constantly ascribe jealousy and envy to those disagreeing with them.

Its exactly the same as the ‘could have worked harder’ meme. Its like they can’t empathise with anyone who simply doesn’t think the best way for the country to grow is if we all have a bit more of the cake rather than just a few individuals having a lot of it.

Hard as it is for some to believe, perhaps the reason people don’t believe in private schools has nothing to do with not being able to afford them.

Why is it whenever a rightwing argument is invoked by a rightwing person do they constantly ascribe jealousy and envy to those disagreeing with them.

Its just a lazy way of shutting down an argument when attention is drawn to their privilege. Tax breaks for private education are and always have been, indefensible.

It does however illustrate the general sense of entitlement some people have who think that the 95% who can’t afford to privately educate their kids should subsidise the 5% that can.

The argument in favour of it pretty much sums up everything that’s wrong with this country and the salty bitterness at the Labour Party for wanting to reduce the entrenched inequality they have personally benefitted from

The more interesting and less trailed change is private schools now having to pay the same NI contributions for their staff that state schools do. About time

Can you expand on that, I thought that private schools just pay the usual employers ni the same as any employer, so what has changed here?

Employers ni has gone up by 1.2%, but AFAIK private schools have always paid the same rate of employers ni as state schools.

A lot of people on this forum need to realise just how much privilege they actually have.

Quite. Average household income is around £36k pa. No-one is going to private school on that, so forgive me if I don’t shed any tears for those being asked to pay tax for their luxury goods.

Can you expand on that

Sorry, can’t find a link, I read about it in the live coverage.  I might have misremembered it. If I find it later, I’ll post it here.

Private schools are having their business rates relief removed as well… another tax break gone. Again… someone check… can’t find a link for that either.

Obviously my last post I meant some of us DO think the best way for the country to grow is if everyone gets a bit more pie, not just a few. Bit of a typo there!

I too know folk who scrimp to send their kids to private school because the normal schools are shite. Good for them, if they can afford it. I’d probably do the same, the academy here is literally crumbling to bits. But surely the right thing for a government to do is to fix funding streams for the shite state schools?

A cursory glance at some private school fees suggests it’s around £6-12K per term. I appreciate 20% on top is gonna sting for many parents, but also, they do have a choice. Send their kid to state school instead will be hard for them, but maybe saving the equivalent of the average household income + 20% every year will soften the pain.

One of my boys was struggling in the state school, we went to a local private school, had a look around, he had an interview. It looked like he would really benefit from it. We did the sums, asked the grandparents if they could help, but they wouldn’t (not couldn’t) and there was no way we could afford it. He stayed in the state school which was going through a shit time, and he had a pretty shit time. We spent some money on tuition and he did okay. My point is there will always be family’s that would like to send their kids to private school, but they can’t afford it. Nothing changes with the new budget, just some different families are priced out. You can either afford it or not, no point in crying about it.

If they can afford private school then they can afford to live in an area with good state schools and even supplement with private tutoring if they’re desperate for their child to get good grades.

Round here (Brighton) the schools are a full lottery system, and some of them are really grotty (others are nice). If your kid only gets a place in a really awful school there aren’t many choices available – as at that point you can’t move somewhere with a good school and get them in (as it’ll be full for year 7), so private takes up a large proportion of the middle class education burden

The tax breaks have always existed because making the prices for private education rise pushes more kids into state education, so might not actually save any money.

Fwiw our kids are in the state system, but the answers (as with all budget questions) are not as simple as they sound. It costs £6200 per year for a secondary school pupil.

“It costs £6200 per year for a secondary school pupil.”

Which coincidentally is almost the exact amount of VAT that will be imposed on a pupil attending Brighton College

@5lab

This recent article from the BBC says private school applications are up to 4.6% down. I just googled how many kids are at private school and it says 560k. So a 4.6% drop would be 25,760. Let’s assume they’re all going to state school and cost your £6,200 so the cost per year of the kids who move to state is about £160m.

Meanwhile there’s still 535k kids going to private school and they’re now all paying 20% on top of their average £17k per year, so 535k * £3.4k = £1.8bn (billion).

I know that’s fag packet maths but looks like the costs are covered several times over to me.

More fag packet maths – the £1.6bn ‘profit’, spread across about 10m school children, gives you £160 per child. My kids primary school has about 300 kids so in theory they could get an extra £48k per year. Enough for a top-drawer teacher. Hope it happens!

And the best bit is that around 20% of that figure is foreign students which is free money for the exchequer.

Really significant cost rises to your local pub btw, despite the silly ‘penny off a pint’ reduction in beer duty.

-the lowering of employers NI threshold to £5k huge-will include most part time staff now that do 1 shift a week. Plus rate increases to 15%.

-business rates discount lowered from 75% to 40% so big rise there.

-minimum wage rise in April is hefty too, and plans to apply it to 18+

Don’t see many rounds with my gf in Bristol being less than £12 these days and that’s only going to head upwards.

I’m just sad that Brexit and demographics doesn’t get a mention from the media.

The problem with trying to pretend that things need to be fully funded.

https://twitter.com/PatriciaNPino/status/1852089122237649397?t=3P05cxB77zlRibpSrScMwg&s=19

“The OBR says Rachel Reeves’ National Insurance increase will only raise £16.1 billion, not the £25.7 billion figure given by the Treasury

They say the NI rise could see wages cut by £7.5 billion, and profits falling by £1 billion”

We are getting boxed in with this bonkers logic of trying constantly to pretend things need to be balanced.

They don’t.

Private schools vote for legal action over VAT plans

The ISC is hoping for a judicial review of the government’s policy, which will focus around claims of breaches of the European Convention on Human Rights.

The action will be brought around Article 14, the prohibition of discrimination, and Article 2 of the First Protocol, the right to education.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c98d3xr0290o

Who is being denied education? Can’t see that getting far, just wasting time and money.

Not giving tax breaks to private businesses is ‘denying education’?

Good luck with that.

And would that be the same European Convention on Human Rights.that both (privately educated) contenders for the Tory Party leadership want to withdraw the UK from?

The change is against EU directives, but not one for the ECHR.

Hang on… do we have an actual Brexit Benefit, at last?!? Taxing private education to fix funding for SEND in the state system?

But surely the right thing for a government to do is to fix funding streams for the shite state schools

They’ve just announced a 19% increase in education spending. Some of that will be paid for by those paying for private schooling (finally!) having to pay tax on their school fees. Seems about right to me

Advani said only 44% of the individuals who gained agricultural relief had received any trading income from agriculture at any point in the five years prior to death.

**** me.

This is a bit of a puzzle.

Specifically with the employers NI. My quick calculation this morning suggests that we are going to be about £1k better off. Yes, more being paid per employee but the increase in the allowance by £5k looks likley to more than offset that for us. Obvs, we are a very small business, based in the north with a small wage bill. But still, doesn’t seem to match the narrative.

My take on the 1p off beer. No pub is going to change the prices of their beer by 1p. Instead the pub will pay 1p less duty on every pint. It’s not a benefit intended for the drinker, it’s a small percentage increase to the pub. I have no real idea how many pints are sold by any particular pub of any particular size but if say a pub sold 1000 pints a week, they’d be better off by £10 or £500/year. Scale that up or down based on your own knowledge of beer sales.

We aren’t privy to the person’s financial situation and I don’t think that Eton has been mentioned

My neighbour sent both of his sons to “Slough Grammar” – it’s a mile from our house. One hated it and both did no better than my sons at the local very goof Boys Comprehensive. Others go to the real Grammar schools in nearby Bucks which are equally close. Private schools have been raising fees well above inflation for years, many can accommodate the increase in VAT and are doing so. The legal challenge is just noise.

Employers NI is the headline here, this will have trickle down effects throughput the economy. As for IHT, well I won’t be buying a farm with my pension tax free lump sum now 😉

I too know folk who scrimp to send their kids to private school because the normal schools are shite.

Most research suggests private schools have a minor academic benefit over state schools. What people are buying in a private school is not a better education, it’s social contacts and relationships with people who have money, power and influence, and a mindset that they are better than everyone else. All they are doing by sending their kids to private school is signalling to everyone else that they think they are better than them, so it’s probably only right that they have to pay for the privelege just like they would if they bought a silly sports car or other status symbol.

Pubs are now competing against supermarkets, and every little tweek of taxation in favour of hospitality is welcome.

Pubs have always completed with home drinking, the problem pubs have is a social shift towards home drinking off the back of COVID.

“Most research suggests private schools have a minor academic benefit over state schools”

Where is this research?

From what I see, independent schools have a massive benefit over state schools when it comes to results, especially at A level.

If your aim is to get a child into a Russell Group University then 60% of students from the independent sector attend whilst only 25% do from the State sector.

Loads of articles on this so not going to link but its very well known.

The money power and influence thing may well be true at a vanishingly small number of private schools like Eton, Harrow and Dulwich College etc but they are in the minority.

For most parents its literally ALL about the results.

Surely the advice to parents who want to send their kids to private school should be; stop wasting your money of avocado toast and lattes from the coffee shop?

because the normal schools are shite.

A pretty lazy generalisation with state school standards, ratings and results all improving in the last 20 years, despite massive funding issues (no pencils for primary school kids, crumbling concrete and portacabin buildings).

What I presume you’re referring to is the behavior of kids in state schools who don’t want to be educated, more often than not as their parents don’t take any interest or provide any encouragement in their education. But state schools don’t have the luxury of being selective, they have a statutory duty to educate all – as it should be. Unless you beleive that kids should be thrown on the scrap heap rather than being give the opportunity to develop and thrive. The comparison between schools on this point is not a valid one.

Anecdotally, I know a lot of privately educated kids I’m aware of did amazingly during covid own-teacher assessed GCSEs……lots of straight 9s where the child had not really shown massive academic potential before.  An independent report after the fact stated well over 70% of the over-awarding of grades was at private schools. A number of these then went onto struggle with A levels or getting into top unis, the metric on which private schooling markets itself.

That last point is also where private schools are feeling some harsh reality and why with the VAT they are feeling threatened. The old boy network used to mean a far higher chance of being accepted into Oxbridge compared to state schooled kids – I’ve heard countless times from parents this last year or so, who’ve been told by the school taking their fees that positive discrimination is the only reason they couldn’t get their little jimmy-jemima a place. No, it’s that straight A’s kids from comps are having to be given an equal-proportional chance of getting in and there isn’t enough room for all.

Surely the advice to parents who want to send their kids to private school should be; stop wasting your money of avocado toast and lattes from the coffee shop?

Aren’t those who spend/waste money on frivolous stuff just re distributing their hard earned cash? Someone has to spend money on pointless stuff in order to keep other people in employment?

As for the price of beer, my guess is that it’ll be going up by 5p to pay for the increase in wages that will take place due to minimum wage increases? I’d buy more beer if it was cheaper, any increase in price reduces the amount I buy and the number of times I visit my local pubs.