A Burnham Cabinet minister has defended sending her children to private schools, saying it does not make her any less Labour.
Energy Secretary Miatta Fahnbulleh, 46, said it was perfectly fine for people to choose fee-paying schools if they were ‘good’ or offered specific opportunities not available at state schools.
The Mail on Sunday revealed earlier this month that the Peckham MP, a rising star on the party’s Left who is a close ally of Mr Burnham, sends her three children to fee-paying schools.
This is despite Ms Fahnbulleh championing Labour’s decision to slap VAT on fees for the first time, a policy critics say has made private education unaffordable for thousands of other parents.
Appearing on The News Agents podcast she said the row over VAT was ‘bizarre’ saying the government should not ‘cross-subsidise parents that do make that choice’.
She went on: ‘If the question you’re asking me is do I believe that parents should have a choice to send their kids to independent school? I do.
‘Parents can do that for a whole host of reasons. Because it’s a good school, because their kids have special educational needs, because they want schools that are geared towards sports and arts. That is OK.
‘I don’t think that precludes me or anyone else who holds that belief from being part of the Labour team or the Labour family.’
Energy Secretary Miatta Fahnbulleh, 46, said it was perfectly fine for people to choose fee-paying schools if they were ‘good’ or offered specific opportunities not available at state schools
Ms Fahnbulleh has not disclosed how much she spends on her children’s education, or which schools they go to.
Sources estimated that the minister, whose husband is a successful City trader and hedge-fund founder, must be spending at least £50,000 a year.
Within striking distance of the couple’s £1.3million home in south-east London are some of the best private schools in the country, including £27,000-a-year Colfe’s School, which boasts a swimming pool, two gyms and a theatre; and £30,000-a-year St Dunstan’s where pupils can enjoy 23 acres of playing fields.
She herself was educated at Beechwood Sacred Heart school in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, where boarders pay £45,000 a year.
Asked about the claim that the VAT change hits parents struggling to afford fees, she told the podcast: ‘I found the debate around the VAT exemption really bizarre. Of course the government is not going to cross subsidise parents sending their children to independent schools.
‘I know that the VAT exemption has been difficult for some parents. But I still believe that at a time when budgets are really tight it is the right thing for the state to decide that we’re not going to cross-subsidise parents that do make that choice to send their children to independent schools and we’re going to put that money into the state sector where the majority of kids go.
That is the right policy. The job of the government is to make the right decision in the public interests.’
