Sir Keir Starmer has said there is “no evidence” private schools will be forced to close due to Labour’s plans to impose VAT on them.

Speaking to Sky’s Sophy Ridge, the Labour leader defended his party’s education policy to use the money to support state schools.

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“I think they will adapt,” he said. “They’ve had lots of increases in costs over the last 14 years and they’ve accommodated it.

“There’s no evidence to show these schools will close. They don’t have to pass the cost on to parents.”

Private schools are currently exempt from VAT – but the Labour Party has pledged to close the current loophole.

Sir Keir was grilled on the policy at the Sky News Leaders’ event in Grimsby.

It’s a difficult choice’

Addressing parents’ concerns, he added: “It’s a difficult choice. But they’re businesses in the end and they’re very successful in the round.

“I want them to thrive. But we need to make this choice, because in the end, if I want the teachers we need in our state secondary schools, I have to answer the question you would put to me, just how are you going to pay for that?

“You’re going to pay for that by getting rid of the tax breaks for private schools, and use it to invest in the teachers we need in our state secondaries.”

Sir Keir was also pressed on the recent backlash to the policy, which Ms Ridge suggested may be related to “many people in Westminster and in the media who either went to private school or send their children there”.

“I think there’s an element of that,” he replied.

Grammer school background

The Labour leader spoke to Sky News following the final TV debate between he and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak before voters go to the polls on 4 July.

A snap Sky News poll suggested the public viewed their performance at the event in Nottingham on Wednesday equally.

Ms Ridge also quizzed the Labour leader on his own education. He attended a grammar school in Surrey, which became private while he was there.

Asked how he felt about the change, he said: “I don’t think I even appreciated it.

“If you ask all the people that were at school with me – we started off as state grammar school boys, paid for by the local authority – we ended up as state grammar school boys paid for by the local authority.”

He stressed the funding and support from the council remained the same.

“It’s obviously very different now, but it is very important to me that every child has those opportunities,” he added.

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The Labour leader says his first steps should he be in Downing Street on 5 July are 40,000 extra NHS appointments to reduce waiting lists, recruiting secondary school teachers, and setting up ‘Great British Energy’ to minimise energy bill rises.

NHS fit ‘for the future’

Specifically on the NHS, he said he aims to “change the very model of the NHS” to “make much greater use of AI” and ensure it is more preventative and community-based.

“Creating the NHS is one [moment] we celebrate every year,” he said.

“I want to make sure that in the 50, 60, 70 years people are celebrating the fact that an incoming Labour government in 2024 made sure the NHS was not something to just proudly look back on, but is actually built fit for the future.”

Asked for his general feelings as the election campaign comes to an end, he said: “We’ve been here for four-and-a-half years.

“I woke up with a smile on my face on 1 January, because I knew we’d have an election this year.

“We’re ready for this. We’ve got a positive offer to put to the country. So we’re campaigning with a smile and a spring in our step.”

After his rival Mr Sunak told a previous TV debate he eats too much Haribo during election campaigns, Sir Keir said coffee was his vice to get him through

“Coffee coupled with cheese sandwiches and tuna sandwiches in the back of that Labour bus,” he said.

A Conservative donor who gave more than £500,000 to the party has defected to Reform UK.

Sir John Hall, the former Newcastle United owner, joined Reform UK leader Nigel Farage at an election rally in Durham on Thursday to announce his support for the party.

Mr Farage said the miner’s son, who helped fund Theresa May’s 2017 election bid, had given Reform UK a donation, but did not confirm how much.

He thanked Sir John “for coming out so publicly for us” and said the property developer was a “major success story, a role model”.

The 91-year-old has donated more than £500,000 to the Conservative Party and helped fund Mrs May’s 2017 snap general election.

In May 2017, he gave £25,000 to the Conservative Party but in February 2018 he expressed disapproval over Mrs May’s “indecisiveness” over Brexit and her lack of domestic policies.

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Sir John’s company was behind the construction of the MetroCentre shopping mall in Gateshead in the 1980s.

He bought Woolsington Hall, northwest of Newcastle, where he has several developments, including a football academy and a luxury hotel with golf course.

Sir John also owns Wynyard Park, a large 19th Century country house in County Durham he spent £4m restoring and is now a special-event venue with an additional 800 properties he had built.

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Reform UK’s multi-millionaire chairman, Richard Tice, was also a long-time Tory donor, until 2019 when he helped found the Brexit Party, which later became Reform UK.

In March, ex-Conservative Party deputy chairman Lee Anderson became another defector to Reform UK.

And Lucy Allan, who was the Tory MP for Telford, quit the Conservatives after she was suspended for supporting the Reform candidate in her constituency.

Reform UK has seen its support rise rapidly over the campaign, with the latest average of all polls putting Reform UK on 15% of the vote, behind the Conservatives on 23% and Labour on 39%.

Sir Keir Starmer has said he did not intend to cause offence to the Bangladeshi community after he singled out the country during a debate about immigration.

The Labour leader said Bangladeshis have made a “massive contribution” to the UK economy – after his comments sparked such a backlash that one Labour councillor in London resigned.

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Speaking specifically about people who come to the UK illegally, Sir Keir said during a debate hosted by The Sun newspaper: “So on the first few days in government, I’ll tell you what I’ll do, I’ll put the staff back in the returns unit, I’ll make sure we’ve got planes going off, not to Rwanda, because that’s an expensive gimmick.”

He then singled out the example of Bangladesh when asked where migrants could be returned to under Labour’s plan.

“The number of people being returned to where they came from, has dropped off by 44% under this government,” Sir Keir said.

“At the moment people coming from countries like Bangladesh are not being removed because they are not being processed.”

The comments were criticised by members of the Bangladeshi community, as well as Labour Party members.

Stepney Green Councillor Sabina Akhtar, deputy leader of Tower Hamlets Labour group, resigned from the party saying Sir Keir had insulted “my Bangladeshi identity”.

Labour election candidate Apsama Begum, who is the daughter of Bangladeshi migrants, said she “will never stand by and let migrant communities be scapegoated”.

Defending the comments on Thursday, Sir Keir said he was trying to give an example of a safe country where a returns agreement is in place – but people aren’t being sent back because their asylum claims are not being processed.

He told broadcasters: “The reference in the debate the other day was an example of a country that is considered safe as far as asylum is concerned, and one of the countries that’s actually got a returns agreement with us, and that is actually a good thing where both we and Bangladesh can be proud of.

“I certainly wasn’t intending to cause any concern or offence to any Bangladeshi community here.”

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He said he values the relationship and the contribution of the Bangladeshi community in Britain, adding: “They’ve made a massive contribution to our economy, to our culture and to our country. That’s why there’s always been a longstanding and strong relationship between Labour and the Bangladeshi community here.

“It’s why my first trip as a Labour MP was to Bangladesh, where I saw for myself the strength of the country, the hospitality and warmth of the country. I’ve got many Bangladeshi constituents in my own constituency who I’ve been working with for many years, and I want to build on that in government.”

Immigration has been a wedge issue on the election campaign, with Rishi Sunak insisting his stalled Rwanda plan will get off the ground eventually but Labour saying it is an “unworkable gimmick” and they will scrap it.

The party wants to divert £75m to a new “border command” force that will focus on “smashing criminal gangs”, and hire 1,000 more caseworkers to create a “Returns and Enforcement Unit” to address the fall in asylum removals since 2010.

Asked by reporters today if that plan would also mean accepting people who come via illegal routes, Sir Keir said: “When people have no right to be here, they will be removed. Where a claim succeeds obviously that is an asylum claim that has succeeded.

“But at the moment there is a 100% success (rate) in the sense that anyone who is here under this government is staying here for life, being paid for by the taxpayer.

“That is not a sustainable or sensible asylum policy. It is an asylum policy that is utterly broken under this government.”