Private schools hit back at 'ignorant' Labour policy plan

The head of a group representing Britain's leading independent schools says the Labour Party's recent policy announcement that it will effectively abolish the fee-paying sector by drawing those schools into the state-funded sector is based on "ignorance and the desire to damage".

At its recent party conference, Labour delegates voted in favor of a manifesto pledge to redistribute those schools' assets, take away their charitable status, add VAT to fees and introduce limits on their pupils' access to higher education.

On Monday, the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference, or HMC, had its annual meeting in London and the group's chair, Fiona Boulton, used her speech to attack the policy and its motives.

"We stand proud of our contribution to education in this country," she said."This is a time for inclusion, acceptance and friendship and a time to inspire harmony. Voters want the government to help more children to get access to independent schools. Parents are ambitious for their children and people want to see our schools opening up, not closing down.

"The decision taken by Labour to abolish our schools was based on ignorance and the desire to damage."

The HMC has 296 members in the British Isles, 55 abroad and a further 10 associate members. Confusingly, in Britain, fee-paying schools, which in most countries would be referred to as private schools, are called by both names, private and public, as opposed to state-subsidized schools, frequently referred to as comprehensives.

HMC schools include Eton College, which has produced 20 British prime ministers including Boris Johnson, Harrow School, which has the next highest number with 7 prime ministers, including Sir Winston Churchill, and both Dulwich College in south London and its sister school in Beijing.

Although to many Labour supporters, the policy is seen as a return to old-fashioned socialist values, the issue does not cut clearly along party lines, with some leading Labour figures, most notably shadow home secretary Diane Abbott, having sent their own children to fee-paying schools.

The HMC also published a survey of 2,000 adults, which shows that the policy is not even a vote-winner. When asked if parents who could afford to pay for their children's education should be free to do so, 68 percent agreed and 18 percent objected.

Unsurprisingly, the highest levels of support came from Conservative voters, with 83 percent, but even 56 percent of Labour voters questioned agreed.

"As leaders of independent schools we need to keep listening and learning. But it seems that independence and choice are concepts which never go out of fashion," said Boulton, who is head of Guildford High School in Surrey.

"And do not be fooled into thinking that imposing crippling taxes is anything other than abolition by the back door. It would ensure that many independent schools would not survive and others will become more expensive. State schools will see larger class sizes and burgeoning costs."

Shadow education secretary, Angela Rayner, has defended the proposal. "I want a comprehensive state education system and I want to stop subsidizing private education which is elitist, which entitles 7 percent of the population to do better than the rest at the expense of everybody else," she told the BBC. "We have to invest in everyone's education."