Tamara Cohen for the Daily Mail, refers to Sutton Trust research in an article on Tristram Hunt’s planned speech.

Tax breaks enjoyed by private schools will be removed under a ‘class war’ proposal to be announced by Labour today.

Shadow education spokesman Tristram Hunt will attack the ‘Berlin Wall’ between the fee-paying and state education system and say the ‘corrosive divide of privilege’ is harming children’s prospects.

And he will vow that a Labour government will axe the £700million of tax breaks which would be earned by private sector over the next parliament – unless the schools do more to help improve education in state schools.

Critics will argue that this approach will only force private schools to raise their fees.

One private school head teacher has already warned that fees are now so expensive they are being used as ‘finishing schools for the children of oligarchs’.

Mr Hunt will say in a speech today that they are ‘barriers to British educational success.

…….

Education charity The Sutton Trust, which ‘aims to improve social mobility and address disadvantage’, is among groups which criticised Labour’s decision to axe the assisted places scheme.

It said last year that children who were awarded free places at private schools under the scheme have ‘reaped the benefits’.

It called for the return of an open access policy ‘that would provide needs-blind admissions to leading independent day schools, enabling able children from low and middle income families to attend those schools based on ability rather than ability to pay’

 

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