On 27 February, during the Lords Committee stage of a Bill which increases the tax burden on many independent schools by making those with charitable status liable to business rates for the first time, Alistair Lexden asked why they were referred to as private schools in this legislation. The text of his remarks follows.
I want to probe the Government’s reasons for not conforming to established practice and usage which have hitherto ensured that independent schools are called by their correct, formal name in legislation.
There may perhaps in recent years have been stray references to private schools in legislation. Never before, I think, has a Bill been brought forward which has abandoned standard practice in favour of another formulation, namely private schools.
Does it matter? Both formulations are in general, everyday use. The words independent and private are used interchangeably in relation to schools outside the state sector of education which of course includes academies, schools which have a measure of independence but are not independent schools.
So the question is whether a comparatively new way of referring to schools outside the state sector—no one, I think, referred to private schools until about 30 years ago—should supersede the term long- established in law and employed universally, I think, by official bodies, most notably the Charity Commission and the Department of Education.
Schools which are charities are registered by the Commission as independent schools. The Education Department keeps a register of schools outside the state sector, which for many years was overseen by a senior civil servant rejoicing in the title of Registrar of Independent Schools. These days the Department has an Independent Schools Division.
No plans, I think, have been announced to sweep away the terminology that has been so long in official use, and replace it with another one featuring the term private school, giving what is now a purely informal practice firm official status.
Surely legislation should reflect standard current formal practice and not create confusion by resorting to a term hitherto unknown in law.
There is one further consideration. The term private school is not universally accepted as politically neutral. It can be regarded as implying criticism of schools outside the state sector—private in the sense of separate, exclusive, cut off from the rest of the world.
That of course is the way in which some on the left in British politics love to portray our country’s independent schools. Their falsehoods are assisted by the term private school. The term has, therefore, I suggest, to be treated with care.
A few years ago a clutch of letters appeared in The Times under the heading “Opening up ‘private’ schools” with inverted commas round the word private.
One of the letters was from the former head of a famous independent school noted for its success in providing places for families with lower incomes. He wrote: “ When journalists began to follow the lead of Blair’s Labour government in using the term private instead of independent, a previously rarely used but politically loaded preference was normalised. Before then, with the rapid growth of independent fee-paying education in the 1970s, independence was throughly embedded in our usage.”
Is there not a strong case for sticking with that usage which carries no awkward political overtones?
The Government unsurprisingly rejected this argument, but the issue warrants proper consideration.
