Can Labour end “trickle-down” education?

Keir Starmer has used Winchester, the elite independent school Rishi Sunak attended, to attack the Tory party over tax benefits for private schools, saying it amounted to “trickle-down education”. Meanwhile, the Prime Minister defended private schools as a personal choice, accusing Starmer of “attacking the hard-working aspirations of millions of people in this country”.

Rachel Cunliffe is joined by Sam Freedman, a former senior adviser on schools at the Department of Education, to discuss Labour’s policy to remove the charitable status of private schools and VAT exemption on school feels, the rage Starmer’s comments have sparked, and the quality of state education.

In You Ask Us, they answer a listener’s question: how much do private schools give out in bursaries to poorer children, and is that more or less than the cost of Labour’s private-school policy proposals?

If you have a question for You Ask Us, go to newstatesman.com/youaskus

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