Luke Sibieta

Spear’s Review

A research economist at the IFS since 2005, Luke Sibieta has led the think tank’s work into the education and skills sector since 2012, having joined as a research economist in 2005. 

The UCL- and LSE-educated economist’s work is usually pored over in small policy circles — yet one of his pieces of analysis from the summer of 2023 had a widespread political impact. 

Announcing a new report that examined private school fees and state school spending, Sibieta wrote: ‘Labour have committed to remove tax exemptions from private schools, including exemptions from VAT and relief on business rates. We estimate that this would raise tax revenues by about £1.6 billion.’  

Sibieta’s work made it into the Labour Party’s manifesto, but it has also been scrutinised by many political observers. The educational consultancy Baines Cutler predicted in a 2018 report that as many as a quarter of privately educated pupils could make the switch to the state sector – which could diminish the Treasury take-in drastically.