KEIR STARMER had Rishi Sunak on the ropes at Prime Ministers Questions as he asked him why private schools are allowed to claim to charitable status and so avoid paying £1.6bn in VAT.

That’s £1.6bn that Labour says it would invest in 6,500 more teachers for our struggling state schools.

Mr Starmer asked Mr Sunak why the Government is giving Winchester College – which just happens to be Mr Sunak’s alma mater – a £6m-a-year tax break. Mr Sunak did not even try to answer, but instead vaguely accused Mr Starmer of trying to thwart aspiration.

Mr Starmer might also have asked Mr Sunak why the Government gives the very wealthiest a state-subsidised 20 per cent reduction in their school fees. It is clearly very unfair, especially when two in five children in the North East are growing up in poverty and at a time when parents of children in the state sector are struggling to afford even basics, which is why a Bishop Auckland primary school has given every child a coat (Echo, Nov 8).

The Conservative position on this is indefensible, as Michael Gove has previously said.

However, there must also be pragmatism in politics. The private sector educates – extremely well, in most cases – 612,000 pupils, or 5.8 per cent of the school population in the UK. If – perhaps when – Labour is elected, its introduction of VAT will cause school fees to rise by 20 per cent. How many of those pupils will, over a period of time, be forced out into the state system. Will the state sector cope? How many new schools will have to be built, or will all children, rich and poor, see the quality of their education diminish as they are crammed into tiny classrooms?