Christian private schools have said they may appeal after losing a High Court challenge against the introduction of VAT charges.
The legal challenge was brought by a bunch of Christian parents, pupils, and schools after the federal government decided to impose the 20% rate of VAT on independent school fees.
They were defended by the Christian Legal Centre (CLC), which said that many Christian schools and oldsters couldn’t afford the extra costs and that the changes were discriminatory and a breach of human rights.
Three High Court judges dismissed the challenge on Friday, arguing that tax policy was a matter for Parliament, not the judiciary, and that there was no legal obligation for the federal government to make sure access to personal education.
The 94-page judgment said that the federal government was “entitled” to think about that aspects like unaffordability for some families were “to be outweighed by the expected revenue raised for public services”.
It acknowledged that some human rights could also be interfered with but said there was a “broad margin of discretion in deciding methods to balance the interests of those adversely affected by the policy against the interests of others who may gain from public provision funded by the cash it is going to raise”.
The legal challenge was brought by the Emmanuel School in Derby, the Branch Christian School in Yorkshire, the King’s School in Hampshire and the Wyclif Independent Christian School in South Wales, and a few of their pupils and oldsters.
Lawyers for Chancellor Rachel Reeves, HMRC and the Department for Education, argued that non-public school parents should pay “their fair proportion”, but lawyers for the Christians argued that this “ignores the indisputable fact that private educating families are being asked to pay more taxes on public education than families who even have their children in public schools”.
Caroline Santer, headteacher at The King’s School, in Fair Oak, Hampshire, said the judgment was “an enormous disappointment”.
“Four times as many pupils as the federal government expected have left independent education, which suggests it’s increasingly likely that no money can be raised by this policy for state schools, or housing as now we have recently heard,” she said. “As a small independent Christian school already fighting extremely narrow profit margins, this laws and the rise in business rates has hit us hard.
“We keep our fees low with the intention to be accessible to low income families who need to select Christian education as is their right, but parents are finding the rise at school fees an enormous burden on their already stretched funds.
“Across the sector, smaller schools are struggling to stay financially afloat, which was already a challenge even before the imposition of VAT on fees, which was an ideological move against freedom of selection.”
Ben Snowdon, Headteacher at Emmanuel School in Derby, said: “The consequences of this policy can be devastating for independent Christian schools and plenty of other low-cost independent schools across the country.
“It is very concerning to folks who will not be from affluent backgrounds and who’ve children with special education needs.“At Emmanuel School we share the federal government’s desire to be sure that all children have access to top quality education, but we’re deeply concerned that the federal government’s VAT proposals will hinder this aim.”CLC chief executive Andrea Williams said: “What has grow to be clear lately, is that the federal government is pursuing a monopoly over education and what our youngsters will learn. Radical RSE [relationships and sex education] was introduced, even effecting independent Christian schools and first schools.
“Private faith schools have been targeted with unfair tax burdens. And home educating families and out-of-school religious educators are also being targeted by pending laws.”
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