'I am voting for Labour... even though their private schools plan will cost me'

One voter has said he’ll be voting for Keir Starmer - even though he’ll likely have to pay more in private school fees.

We sent reporters around the country to speak to real people about their General Election concerns. Labour have said they will abolish the VAT-exempt status for independent schools, raising millions more for the state sector.

But we got some surprising answers when we took this question to voters around the UK as part of our 5,000 Voices campaign to speak to the public around the UK.

Mark, the director of an advertising company, from Haslemere, said he wasn’t happy with the Labour proposal - but would vote for the party anyway.

He said:” My kids are in private school. I work like a dog to pay for them, but Labour are going to put VAT on the school fees. And I'm saying I'm going to vote Labour. know a family. They have got four kids but they've already taken two kids out of primary school.”

Labour's VAT plans will cost Mark, from Surrey, but he's still supporting the party

But other parents who pay thousands to school their kids gave an alternative view. Surrey mum Liz Craven, 52, a psychotherapist, said: "They are looking, if Labour to get in, to add VAT to independent schools which obviously will affect my children, my youngest child. Whether it raises enough to ensure the state system can cope with that, I don't know.

"But I already know families that are going to struggle and potentially move their kids back to state, so that's a worry. You've got something that affects me directly, but it affects my circle of friends so it does bother me.”

Famous private schools, such as boarding schools Eton and Gordonstoun, can charge up to £35,000 a year. The average fee for day pupils was £18,064, according to figures from this year.

Currently independent schools avoid paying the standard 20 per cent VAT due to a long-standing exemption for organisations which offer education or vocational training.

However, Labour’s manifesto promises to end this exemption as well as local business rates relief. The party believes that doing so would raise an extra £1.5 billion by the year 2028-29, which could be pumped into the state sector.

And many voters suggested they’d back the reform.

One voter in East Bristol said: "It's pretty straight-forward, you can raise tens of billions of pounds with pretty small changes to the tax system. Children are going to school hungry, they are going to school distracted and they are going to school tired because basic needs aren't being met and we can do that very easily by raising taxes properly."

And Gabriel O’Connell, 30, a market researcher, from Leeds, said: "There's not enough teachers, is there? We've seen over the last 15 years, class sizes are bigger than ever. Personally, one thing I do support is what Labour is proposing to reintroduce VAT on private schools.

"I think it's the right thing to do, it's the sort of thing we should be doing because I believe passionately that all children should have an equal opportunity and more and more kids going to private school isn't the way to do it.”

His wife Victoria O’Connell, 30, who works in PR and marketing, said: "Greater equity across the public and private sector is needed otherwise things are going to get worse further down the line for kids growing up now."

Dr Martha Geiger, an academic living in Surrey, said: “I do worry about the system here. I'm Canadian, so private schools are not as embedded in the education system here.

"Most people send their children to public-funded schools and I do feel like it's quite an inequitable system here. And I feel that it enforces a class divide that is problematic and should be looked at.”

Labour has argued that ending the long-running VAT exemption is one way of reducing educational inequalities. But Tory opponents have dubbed it a 'tax raid' on middle class parents.

And independent headteachers and supporters of the sector say schools would have no choice but to pass this increase directly to parents, leaving many unable to afford the fees. They argue this would put extra pressure on class sizes throughout the UK and see many private schools forced to close.

5000 Voices reporters: Charles Elliman; Alanah Hammond; Michal Grant