Labour confirms exact date private schools to be charged 20% VAT

If the roughly 2,500 private schools in the UK choose to pass on the tax rise to parents, it will mean that fees will rise in the middle of the school year.

The Government is also set to levy a charge to all fees which have been paid in advance - in a bid to prevent schools and parents skirting around the tax rise via a prepayment loophole.

The crackdown on the schools' tax status had been a core tenet of Labour's manifesto earlier this year.

Previously, British tax law exempted any form of education provision from VAT - which had long come under fire from critics on the left, who had framed private schools as businesses first, educators second.

Ahead of the General Election, future Home Secretary Yvette Cooper defended the move to GB News, telling The People's Channel the policy was about "fairness".

Cooper said: "We think this is about fairness. Other organisations and institutions have to pay VAT.

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"We do think it's fair for private schools to pay VAT - and for that money to be used to recruit 6,500 teachers for our state schools right across the country.

"This will help to make sure we can get mental health professionals into our schools because there is a mental health crisis going on with our children."

The then-Shadow Home Secretary added: "They will need to pay the VAT just like everybody else does. It's for them to decide what they want then they do about their fees."

Chief executive of the Independent Schools Association (ISA) Rudolf Eliott Lockhart said many smaller institutions were already on a financial "knife edge", speaking to the Telegraph.

Lockhart, speaking in May, said: "In a sector our size there are always some schools, sadly, who close each year.

"This policy will inevitably increase the number of schools that are in that category. What's not clear is how much it will increase by.

"Labour hasn't fleshed out the policy, so we’re looking at tea leaves and trying to work out from different speeches that Labour figures have made about what the policy is likely to be."

GB News has approached the ISA for comment in light of the Chancellor's announcement.