Education secretary Bridget Phillipson has said she does not accept claims that independent schools will be forced to withdraw bursaries once VAT is imposed on fees.

Phillipson told Times Radio that “changes around VAT should not and must not impact on the work that [private schools] are doing around bursaries. There is an expectation of course that that would continue.”

She said some “wealthy” schools were only using a “relatively small percentage” of their income to fund bursaries.

“Some very wealthy schools with significant assets and big levels of income aren’t putting a huge amount of that money towards bursaries and support in terms of partnership working with the state sector,” she said.