Labour tax raid will force 40,000 private school pupils into state sector, warns Gillian Keegan

She warned voters not to “sleepwalk into socialism” and raised alarm over the risk of Labour moving towards the left if it wins power.

Ms Keegan stressed that VAT abuse in private schools is the first step towards introducing higher taxes in the state, which would result in higher taxes on jobs, cars and homes.

“With no regard for these children or the impact it will have on their education, they will impose a 20 percent tax on them – the first time in the history of this country that we will tax education,” she said.

“Over half a million people work in the independent education sector, and many parents can barely support their children in smaller schools.

“So tens of thousands – at least 40,000 – (of students will be forced to go) without a plan to the state sector in September. “The impact of this shows that (Labour) simply doesn’t care about children.”

Schools say more students may be affected

The Minister of Education referred to data from the Institute for Fiscal Studies think tank, which estimated that 7 percent of students may be forced to leave private schools.

The Independent Schools Council, which represents the private education sector, says the true number could be as high as 100,000.

Ms Keegan also responded to comments by Shadow Foreign Secretary David Lammy, in which he criticised the “smallness of public schools” by senior Tories.

She said the comments showed Labour “doesn’t understand” that most independent schools are small and when they talk about them they “think it’s Eton”.

“The Labour Party’s hypothesis about private schools is incredible,” she added. “Half of them went to one and the other half sent their children to one.

“And the thing the working class doesn’t like is hypocrisy. They don’t mind if someone has money. We all aspire to them. They don’t like hypocrisy.”

She added: “This is an ideology that aims to destroy the independent education sector, just as other parts of the education sector have been destroyed in the past.”

Employees ‘fixated on class’

Ms Keegan suggested that private school policies were motivated by a fixation on classes and spoke scathingly about Bridget Phillipson, her Labor shadow.

“I can’t imagine a person who would like to be education minister and at the same time disrespect children just because he sees or judges them as potentially belonging to a different class,” she said.

Four shadow ministers attended private secondary schools – John Healey studied defence, Louise Haigh transport and Anneliese Dodds, leader of the Labour Party.

Sir Keir attended the grammar school which became independent while he was there, but as he was already a pupil his parents did not pay any fees.

Labour has previously been criticised for sending its children to independent schools while criticising private education.

They include Diane Abbott, a veteran left-wing MP who sent her son to a private school despite criticizing it for “supporting the class system in society”.

Mrs Keegan, 56, is from a working-class background on Merseyside. She attended the local state secondary school, becoming the first student to achieve 10 O-Levels, before leaving at the age of 16 to become an apprentice in a car components factory.

Unlike many of her colleagues, she joined the Tories from an apolitical background and describes herself as “the first person I know who voted Conservative”.