Steve Edwards

[Steve Edwards @MrEdMaths]

@NoEducationTax @SteveLawrence_ @bphillipsonMP @UKLabour If there have been no new mainstream schools opened since VAT was introduced, why does your table say otherwise? If that figure is wrong, I assume the whole table is unreliable!

[Steve Edwards @MrEdMaths]

@DT10113 @SteveLawrence_ @bphillipsonMP @UKLabour The claim that they bought the school without knowing their financial circumstances is frankly bizarre!

[Steve Edwards @MrEdMaths]

@JamesPenli51930 @SteveLawrence_ @bphillipsonMP @UKLabour Total nonsense. The school was bought by new owners and closed within 2 weeks. Nothing to do with a VAT increase in fees! It looks far more like an asset stripping exercise, with plans to turn it into a luxury health spa.

[Steve Edwards @MrEdMaths]

@NoEducationTax @SteveLawrence_ @bphillipsonMP @UKLabour If you’re so intent on focusing on just mainstream, 61 closed in 2025 compared with an average of 49 per year (still lower than two years previously). That is one extra school closing per month, a far cry from the deliberately misleading headline of a school closing every 5 days.

[Steve Edwards @MrEdMaths]

@NoEducationTax @SteveLawrence_ @bphillipsonMP @UKLabour The table also shows virtually no change in 2025 compared to the previous decade, and shows 16 new mainstream schools opened in 2025 when you’ve claimed none in the last 18 months. It also shows that more mainstream independent secondary schools closed in 2023 than in 2025.

[Steve Edwards @MrEdMaths]

@NoEducationTax @SteveLawrence_ @bphillipsonMP @UKLabour Your table literally has the average number of closures at the bottom of the column in the middle at 69.
You are taking the net figure of mainstream closures which is a totally different figure to the total closures quoted in the previous post & all the news articles

[Steve Edwards @MrEdMaths]

@EducationNotTax The new owners promised the school’s future was safe when they bought the building & grounds for a bargain price a few days ago. Now they close it to turn it into a luxury spa!
Watch where the assets of other closed schools end up to find the real motivation.

[Steve Edwards @MrEdMaths]

@AdamJ10812 @Bajones06427851 @jowilliams293 You implied that private school costs had been raised by more than inflation because their staffing costs were higher. In fact their increases in fees hugely outstripped inflation and the rises above inflation that schools incurred

[Steve Edwards @MrEdMaths]

@AdamJ10812 @Bajones06427851 @jowilliams293 The screenshot tells you that the increases in costs for private schools and state schools was identical at around 5% above inflation (a previous figure I saw said 3% but may have been a slightly different time frame). The data is from this IFS report https://t.co/dUrj8E4yL9

[Steve Edwards @MrEdMaths]

@RemoteHusband @jowilliams293 Standing costs are a higher percentage of spending in state schools than private schools. According to this information, increases in costs for state schools and private schools were identical over the period from 2010-2023

[Steve Edwards @MrEdMaths]

@abritishparent @educationgovuk @bphillipsonMP @LauraTrottMP I’m amazed that this number seems to have gone from 11,000 to 25,000 and now 30,000 in the space of a week!

[Steve Edwards @MrEdMaths]

@JoePublic2024 @NeilDotObrien @LauraTrottMP Sorry, I should have said the figures were “collected in Nov 2024” not “published in Nov 2024”. The final report and analysis was published in August 2025.

[Steve Edwards @MrEdMaths]

@JoePublic2024 @NeilDotObrien @LauraTrottMP Are you incapable of comprehending or deliberately spreading disinformation?
The DfE report quoting 400 fewer teachers published in Nov 2024 refers to teacher numbers for the school year beginning Sept ‘24.
What did you think Labour could do in the months after getting elected?

[Steve Edwards @MrEdMaths]

@JoePublic2024 @NeilDotObrien @LauraTrottMP The drop of 400 teachers is the figure for the last year of the Conservative government, and has nothing to do with Labour.
Phillipson’s figures for extra teachers is taken from analysis of teacher numbers a whole year later!
Why don’t you understand?
https://t.co/NtywSpEGIp

[Steve Edwards @MrEdMaths]

@AdamJ10812 @Bajones06427851 @jowilliams293 The IFS say school fees have risen by 3% above the general rate of inflation for the reasons you say.
That’s not “way more”. State schools have had to absorb that cost, and cut their costs accordingly, as their finances did not increase in line with inflation +3% in that period

[Steve Edwards @MrEdMaths]

@SteveLawrence_ @educationgovuk @bphillipsonMP @hmtreasury I agree with this argument.
Do you think state education would get better with an increase in private schools or with a decrease?

[Steve Edwards @MrEdMaths]

@NoEducationTax @jowilliams293 In the two years prior to VAT being added, fees went up by more than 15%.
Why did private schools need 50 more income in real terms in 2023 than they did in 2003? Where did it go, what was it being spent on and what possible savings out of that 50% could they have made?