Labour have not hired any new teachers thanks to their tax raid on private schools. Guido is old enough to remember that Labour claimed the punitive tax would help fund 6,500 new teachers…
Asked how many extra teachers have been recruited as a result of VAT raised, education minister Baroness Smith couldn’t answer:
“HM Treasury published a Tax Information and Impact Note (TIIN) on applying VAT to independent school fees. The TIIN estimates that, accounting for the spending implications of any pupil movement into the state sector, the policy is expected to raise £1.7 billion per annum by 2029/30.”
Meanwhile one in five private school teachers say they have had colleagues made redundant due to Labour’s VAT on fees. School’s out…
Shadow national security minister Alicia Kearns told Times Radio she would have put a precondition on a China trip if she were PM:
“I would have put a precondition that I was not going to go if I was prime minister, unless Jimmy Lai was coming home with me. I would also put a precondition in the six months leading up to the visit that I wanted a reduction in hostile acts against our country. But that’s not what we saw. And actually, in contrast, what we saw was clearly the Chinese Communist Party did put a precondition, which was that the new embassy in London had to be signed off. So why is it okay for China to set preconditions and to make very clear red lines about what they require for a visit, but we go without having put any ourselves?”