An association representing a top-scoring boarding school in High Wycombe has criticised the Labour Party’s pledge to impose VAT on fee-paying parents – as costs are hiked by over 6 per cent for the coming academic year.

Labour announced the plan to add Value Added Tax to private school fees by abolishing their charitable status last month as one of 10 policies aimed at ‘changing Britain’ ahead of the general election on July 4.

The Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS) estimates that the move could cause a three to seven per cent drop in private school attendance but, taken alongside falling pupil numbers at schools across England due to declining birth rates, would be unlikely to put undue pressure on the state system.

However, director of the Boarding Schools’ Association (BSA), which represents the top-scoring Bucks-based school Wycombe Abbey, has hit out at the plan, describing it as a “tax on sleeping children”.

David Walker warned Labour that the addition of an average 20 percent VAT would make independent schools “the only part of education subject to the tax across the whole of Europe”.

Speculating that the policy could force “thousands” of children out of independent schools, he called for “all boarding fees to be exempted” to preserve the UK’s “world-leading” reputation in the sector.

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Adding: “The UK has the largest number of boarding schools per square mile in the world, the world’s oldest boarding school, and more specialist boarding schools than any other country.

“That’s why we’re calling on all parties running to form the next government officially to recognise, promote and protect one of the jewels in the crown of UK education.”

The concerns come as Wycombe Abbey, an all-girls boarding school based in High Wycombe, reportedly plans to raise fees by 7.5 per cent for day pupils and 6.8 per cent for boarders in the 2024/25 academic year, according to analysis by The Daily Telegraph. 

It also follows the publication of the Independent Schools Council’s annual census last month, showing a 2.7 percent fall in the number of new pupils joining private schools – the biggest drop since data was first collected in 2011.

In a foreword to the report, ISC chairman Barnaby Lenon said Labour’s plan to introduce the VAT charge was “looming large in parents minds” and could trigger "an acute shock to the system".