Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill
Debate between Lord Cryer and Ian Lavery(10 years, 11 months ago)
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John Cryer
My hon. Friend will know that over the years, under Governments of both political complexions, there have been all sorts of reports on what are generally referred to as the burdens on business. In line with the suggestion from the hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly), does not my hon. Friend think it would be a good idea to have an assessment of the burdens on trade unions? I would not recommend someone such as Adrian Beecroft to conduct the review, but it would be a good idea to have some sort of report on those burdens, just so that we can set out the argument in objective terms, in contrast to this very subjective piece of legislation that is being rammed through Parliament.
Ian Lavery
Of course that should be the case, but I am not sure that the Opposition should ask the coalition Government even to try to be sympathetic to the trade union movement. I would be afraid of their response. I know that it would not be positive. Perhaps instead of taking away 90% of trade unionists’ facility time, they would take 95%. That is an example of the ways in which the trade unions have been attacked by the coalition Government.
Education Maintenance Allowance
Debate between Lord Cryer and Ian Lavery(13 years, 7 months ago)
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John Cryer
I am not going to give way, because I am short of time.
In my borough, I note that 63% of students at Leyton sixth-form college in my constituency receive EMA, and well over 1,000—1,100—receive the top rate of £30 a week. In the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Dr Creasy), who was in the Chamber earlier, 47% of students at Waltham Forest college receive EMA, and more than 800 are on the top rate. Those students and their college principals have told us not to get rid of EMA.
Principals from other boroughs have said the same thing. Eddie Playfair, who has been on television and radio repeatedly over the past few weeks, lives in my constituency but is the head of Newham sixth-form college in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown). He has one of the highest numbers of students on EMA, and he has consistently said, “Don’t get rid of it.” My hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck) said the same in her remarks, yet the Government say, “We know best; we’re going to get rid of it.”
John Cryer
No, I will not, because I need to crack on.
The “enhanced discretionary learner support fund”—if ever I heard an Orwellian phrase, that is it—is so far unclear. We have not been told how it will work, but we do know that funding will drop from half a billion—£575 million—a year to £75 million a year, and it is absolute fantasy to suggest that with such funding we will be able to cover all the students who need assistance. I have attended meeting after meeting with students, principals and lecturers, and they all say the same thing: “This will deter people, particularly from poorer backgrounds, from continuing in education.” Yet the Government, and Liberal and Tory MPs, have engaged in a process of mendacity and misinformation, saying, “We’ll work together and do our best to come up with some scheme that will actually work.” The way to send a signal to the Secretary of State, however, is to join us in the Lobby tonight and vote for our motion.
At a time when bankers’ bonuses are being doled out to the tune of £7 billion, it is an obscenity to see a Government refusing to intervene with the banks yet at the same time taking money away from some of the poorest students in this country. However, there is one thing that we should be grateful for, and that is that the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister are managing to do what many of us have wanted to do for a long time by politicising a generation of students. I can promise the House that those students who are being politicised by the abolition of EMA and by the tuition fees debacle will not be voting Liberal Democrat and will not be voting Conservative.