The Chancellor’s claim that taxing private school fees will give all children the ‘best start’ has been branded ‘shameful’.

Rachel Reeves has insisted that £1.7 billion would be raised by the 20 per cent VAT imposed on private schools from New Year’s Day, in a press release celebrating Labour’s ‘plan for change’.

As the surge in fees has seen thousands of families have to pull their children out of the independent sector and schools face going to the wall, her comment that her system will give ‘every child the best start in life’ has been criticised as ‘tone deaf’.

The Independent Schools Council (ISC) said the ‘unprecedented tax’ on education would be felt by families and children across state and independent schools, and insisted that the Government’s sums were wrong.

‘The money the Government claims it will raise is an estimate not a fact,’ ISC chief executive Dr Julie Robinson told The Mail on Sunday.

The ISC said it was concerned about the risk to low-fee faith schools and specialist arts schools, as well as the availability of special education needs (SEN) provision for children who needed additional support.

Professor Alan Smithers, of Buckingham University, said: ‘Small local schools, especially those catering for SEN pupils, face going to the wall, leaving the parents struggling to find a place or having to home educate.

‘The top schools will be put beyond the reach of many more parents.’

Rachel Reeves (pictured) claim that taxing private school fees will give all children the ‘best start’ has been branded ‘shameful’

The Independent Schools Council (ISC) said the ‘unprecedented tax’ on education would be felt by families and children across state and independent schools, and insisted that the Government’s sums were wrong. Pictured: Pupils at Eton

Chris Ramsey, a former Headmasters and Headmistresses’ Conference committee chairman, said: ‘Every pupil educated in an independent school is a child that the state does not have the burden of educating. That this is seen as something deserving of punitive measures is shameful.’

Chris McGovern, chairman of the Campaign For Real Education, described Ms Reeves’s press release as ‘tone deaf’.

He said: ‘The Government’s expectations are deceitful, duplicitous and delusional.’

Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson said: ‘High and rising standards cannot just be for families who can afford them, and we must build an education system where every child can achieve and thrive.’