Non-Domestic Rating (Multipliers and Private Schools) Bill: Motion to disagree with Lords Amendment 13B

Parliament voted on 31 March 2025 to reject Lords Amendment 13B to the Non-Domestic Rating (Multipliers and Private Schools) Bill, passing the motion to disagree by 301 votes to 167. The amendment, which had been passed by the House of Lords, would have modified the tax treatment of private schools under the business rates system. By voting to reject it, the Commons maintained the government's original approach to how private schools are taxed under the reformed business rates framework.

The practical effect of this vote is to keep in place the government's intended policy of removing the charitable rate relief that private schools have historically enjoyed on their business rates. This forms part of a broader effort to increase the tax burden on fee-charging independent schools, with the revenues intended to fund improvements to state education. The vote directly affects the roughly 2,500 independent schools across England that currently benefit from charitable status exemptions on non-domestic rates, as well as the families who use them and the state school pupils whose education the government says will benefit from redirected funds.

The vote divided almost entirely along party lines. Labour and Labour and Co-operative MPs voted unanimously in favour of rejecting the Lords amendment, providing the government's majority of 301. Conservative, Liberal Democrat, Reform UK, Democratic Unionist Party, Ulster Unionist Party, and Traditional Unionist Voice MPs all voted against, totalling 167 Noes, with no notable cross-party rebels in either direction. Three Green Party MPs and three Independents voted with the government. The vote is part of a sequence of ping-pong divisions on the same bill on the same day, in which the Commons consistently reasserted its position against Lords amendments seeking to soften or alter the private schools provisions, reflecting the government's determination to pass this flagship education and tax policy intact.