Labour’s Energy Secretary Miatta Fahnbulleh has admitted that all three of her children attend fee-paying schools, despite having championed the government’s VAT raid on independent school fees, a policy critics say has priced thousands of other families out of private education.
The Peckham MP, 46, was confronted with the findings by the Mail on Sunday and confirmed that her children are privately educated. She declined to disclose how much the family pays in fees, though she and her husband, City trader Graham, are believed to spend at least £50,000 a year.
Fahnbulleh was appointed Energy Secretary in Andy Burnham’s first Cabinet and has been a prominent voice on the Labour Left in support of the party’s decision to strip private schools of their VAT exemption, a move that added 20 per cent to fees nationwide.
A Policy With a Heavy Toll
Labour’s VAT raid, introduced under Chancellor Rachel Reeves and Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson, has been one of the government’s most contentious tax changes. Official and independent estimates suggest around 30,000 pupils have left the independent sector since the policy took effect, roughly double the government’s original projection.
The policy has already forced school closures. The Meadows Montessori School in Ipswich became one of the latest casualties last year, telling parents of its 68 pupils that the tax, which it had to pass on in full, had made its position “unaffordable” and its closure “unavoidable.”
Independent schools mounted a legal challenge against the tax, arguing it breached the human rights of pupils with needs the state sector could not meet. The High Court rejected that challenge earlier this year, ruling that ministers retained a “broad margin of discretion” in weighing the interests of those harmed by the policy against those it was designed to benefit.
“Champagne Socialism”
News of Fahnbulleh’s own arrangements has drawn sharp criticism from the Conservative benches. Party chairman Kevin Hollinrake accused her of “classic champagne socialism”: the practice of advocating policies for others that one is unwilling to live by oneself.
The revelation follows a pattern of scrutiny over senior Labour figures’ personal arrangements clashing with policies they have publicly defended. Ms Phillipson has previously insisted the VAT change was necessary because tax breaks for private schools amounted to “a luxury we cannot afford,” and has said she would wear the policy as “a badge of honour.”
The Bigger Picture
The Treasury says the VAT raid will raise £1.5 billion this year, rising to £1.7 billion annually by 2029/30, money ministers say will fund improvements to state education, including new teacher recruitment. However, Labour has already been forced to scale back one of its flagship related pledges, a manifesto commitment to hire 6,500 new state school teachers.
Critics argue the policy is proving more costly than advertised, both to the Treasury, which may see savings eroded by the cost of absorbing displaced pupils into the state system, and to families who say they are being squeezed out of a choice they have made sacrifices to afford.
For opponents of the policy, Fahnbulleh’s case has become a symbol of a wider argument: that some of the loudest advocates for taxing private education are able to shield their own children from its consequences, while ordinary families are left to absorb the cost.
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