Bridget Phillipson claimed that private schools had collapsed because the government was forcing them to pay 20% VAT on fees starting in January, claiming instead that some had struggled to balance their books for a number of years.
This week, Kilgraston and Cedars, two Scottish schools, became the first to close since Labour took office. They identified the policy’s ambiguity as one of their reasons.
However, Ms. Phillipson shot it down, saying to the News: “I believe what we’ve seen is that private schools are companies that can make choices about the level of fees that they charge and how they manage their finances.
In the end, the amount of pupils sent there depends on how appealing they are to families.
Many people have been priced out of private schools as a result of the current trend of annual fee increases that have exceeded inflation.
And I believe that what we’ve seeing in some of the cases that are being highlighted is that schools that were already facing significant financial shortages weren’t drawing in as many kids as they would have liked.
