Non-Domestic Rating (Multipliers and Private Schools) Bill: Motion to disagree with Lords Amendment 2B

Parliament voted on 31 March 2025 to reject a House of Lords amendment that would have modified the government's plan to strip private schools of their business rates relief. The motion to disagree with Lords Amendment 2B passed by 301 votes to 104. The vote was part of a prolonged back-and-forth between the Commons and the Lords, known as parliamentary ping-pong, over the Non-Domestic Rating (Multipliers and Private Schools) Bill, which forms part of the government's broader push to end tax advantages for independent schools.

The vote matters because it clears the way for the government's policy of removing the charitable business rates relief that private schools have historically enjoyed, a policy that runs alongside the separate but related measure to apply VAT to independent school fees. Together, these changes are intended to raise revenue and, in the government's framing, reduce what it describes as taxpayer subsidies to fee-paying schools. The policy affects the roughly 2,500 private schools in England that have benefited from mandatory and discretionary rates relief. The funds raised are intended by the government to be directed toward state education, including the recruitment of additional teachers.

The division followed strict party lines. Labour and Labour and Co-operative MPs voted unanimously in favour, joined by the three Green MPs and three independents, giving the government a comfortable majority. All 94 voting Conservatives, all four Reform UK MPs, all four Democratic Unionist Party MPs, and both unionist members from Ulster and Traditional Unionist Voice voted against. The vote sat within a series of Commons victories for the government on the same day, with parallel motions to disagree with Lords Amendments 1B, 13B, and a cluster of amendments numbered 15B through 15E all passing by similar margins, reflecting consistent government discipline and a concerted Lords effort to reshape the legislation that the elected chamber repeatedly rejected.