The "very poor" quality of teaching in state schools is forcing thousands of parents to pay for their children's education, a leading figure from the independent schools sector told MPs today.

Chris Parry, the new chief executive of the Independent Schools Council, said it was "offensive" that local schools were not good enough for his children.

He said a "Cold War" had broken out between independent and state schools and described the Charities Act, which threatens charitable tax breaks worth about £100 million a year to the private system, as a "missile from the maintained sector into the independent sector".

Mr Parry, a former rear admiral in the Royal Navy, continued the military metaphor by saying the rules indicated "a flashpoint on the Berlin Wall" between the "severe sectarian divide" that separates the two different education systems. He warned that extra costs involved in providing for bursaries would force schools to increase fees to prohibitive levels.

He added later that people only really value education if they pay for it. “Having had experience in Afghanistan, if you give rifles to the Afghanis they give them to the Taliban. If you sell them to them for a $1 they guard them and take care of them.”

Recent guidance from the Charity Commission suggests that schools could offer discounted places to pupils from low-income families by "increasing fees for some beneficiaries to subsidise fees for others who cannot afford the fees". This did not go down well with many in the sector.

Mr Parry's combative stance will be welcomed by many in the independent sector, who are fed up with rhetoric of envy surrounding many debates on private schooling and who resent being used as the whipping boys of backbench Labour MPs who are opposed to independent schools .

Privately, however a number of leading heads in the independent sector admit that they have not in the past done sufficient good deeds to justify charitable status. Some confess that the Charities Act has jolted them out of their complacency.

Last month, the heads of ten leading independent schools, including Dulwich College, Harrow and Wellington College, wrote to The Times, stressing the importance of state and independent schools working together.

Anthony Seldon, Master of Wellington, said: "The Charities Act shines a powerful searchlight on the relationship between the two sectors." He told The Times the Act provided a "once in a generational opportunity" for the opposing systems to lay aside the "class warfare, educational apartheid and the education war language," that has dominated their relationship for decades.

Mr Parry was giving evidence to MPs on the Children, Schools and Families select committee. "I find it very offensive that I can't find provision in the maintained sector for my child. I pay my taxes," he said. But he refused to say which local authorities forced him to give both his children an exclusively private education.

"Where I come from the maintained sector is very poor and my wife and I have made sacrifices to send both our children to the independent sector."

Mr Parry also said the "ideological difference" between the state and private sectors leads tutors to "bully" trainee teachers out of entering private education. "There is a lot of prejudice and bullying from the maintained sector, particularly in the teacher training colleges.

"During the Cold War you had misperceptions about what is going on on the other side," he said and called for more interaction between the two sectors.

A spokesman for the Department for Children Schools and Families said: "The overwhelming majority of pupils attend state schools, where the hard work of teachers and record tax payers' investment is resulting in the highest standards ever."

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