Bridget Phillipson has been accused of waging a “vindictive class war” and using her tax policy on private school fees to satisfy a “party-political itch.”
The Education Secretary came under sharp attack from Conservative shadow minister James Cleverly, who claimed the introduction of VAT on independent school fees amounted to “punishing” families who choose private education.
The criticism follows a Mail on Sunday report that Phillipson’s family made a 900 per cent profit on the council house where she was raised, after buying it under right-to-buy rules.
Labour is now moving to make such purchases significantly more difficult, prompting opponents to accuse the party of “pulling up the drawbridge.”
Mr Cleverly, the Shadow Housing Secretary, has now renewed his attack over Labour’s private school tax, which critics have linked to the closure of more than 100 schools.
He said: “Bridget Phillipson has pursued an agenda which has nothing to do with raising money, nothing to do with recruiting teachers.
“It’s about punishing people who spend their own money to send their children to private school.”
A Labour spokesman pushed back this evening, accusing the Conservatives of mounting a “vile smear campaign” and claiming they “hate working class people that do well.”
Bridget Phillipson (pictured) has been accused of fighting a ‘vindictive class war’ to ‘scratch a party-political itch’ over her tax on private school parents.
Mr Cleverly’s comments came in response to questions over whether Tory leader Kemi Badenoch had been right to compare Mrs Phillipson to a ‘Gestapo officer’ over the tax.
He said that he would not personally use that ‘phraseology’, but added: ‘We’ve been traditionally, by the Labour Party, described as lower than vermin, but when Kemi highlights the fact that these policies are vindictive and they are about class war rather than recruiting teachers, she gets vilified by the Labour Party.’
And he added: ‘I do think we need to be robust, and I do think where we see people, particularly a Secretary of State, particularly the Government, doing things not for the good of the country, but to scratch a party political itch, I think it’s absolutely right we call it out.’
Labour’s election manifesto said the new VAT on private school fees, which was effective from January 2025, was necessary to pay for 6,500 new teachers in the state sector.
And Mrs Phillipson appeared to mock private school parents by posting on X in 2024: ‘Our state schools need teachers more than private schools need embossed stationery.’
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However, the latest figures show a reduction of 1,900 teachers in mainstream schools in the last year – calling into question that claim.
This week, an X post by Mrs Phillipson was reported as inaccurate by users because it stated there were ‘3,008 more teachers in secondaries and special schools’.
The Department for Education (DfE) claimed this is in fact accurate because the target does not include primary schools, and uses November 2023 – eight months before Labour came into power – as a starting point.
It comes after The Mail on Sunday exposed how her family made a profit of 900 per cent on the council house she grew up in (pictured) thanks to right-to-buy rules
And a spokesman for Mrs Phillipson said: ‘The nasty party is back and this time it’s on steroids.
‘The Conservatives’ vile smear campaign against yet another Northern working class woman tells you everything you need to know: they hate working class people that do well.
‘Like their electoral bedfellows Reform, they have nothing to offer this country but rancour and division.
‘No amount of smears or hateful personal attacks is going to stop Bridget Phillipson delivering better life chances for working class families denied opportunity by fourteen years of Tory austerity.’
The row came after it was revealed that in 1990, Mrs Phillipson’s mother Clare bought her two-bedroomed council house in Washington, Tyne and Wear, for £9,600 – a 38 per cent discount on the £15,490 market value.
It remained in the family’s ownership until May 2023 when it was sold for £99,950 – a profit of more than 900 per cent.
But Labour’s Social Housing Bill, currently going through Parliament, will slash the number of families who are able to follow in Mrs Phillipson’s footsteps.
The legislation will extend the time tenants must have lived in the property before they can exercise their option to buy from three years to ten.
And discounts will start at just five per cent of the property value, rising to a maximum of 15 per cent.
Ministers say the measures are needed to increase the stock of social housing. They are expected to reduce sales from 8,200 a year to around 850, a drop of about 90 per cent.
