Education Maintenance Allowance

Heidi Alexander Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd November 2010 Westminster Hall

[Mr Gibb]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. I know that some people have seen the EMA as an additional welfare benefit—the point made by the hon. Member for Rochdale (Simon Danczuk)—but it is important to clarify that the EMA has never been a support benefit. It was introduced by the previous Government to incentivise young people to stay in post-compulsory education. It has always been paid in addition to welfare payments. The Government have protected support for families with the lowest incomes and we will continue to support the most vulnerable while ensuring that all sections of society that are able to contribute to the deficit reduction do so. The withdrawal of child benefit from higher rate taxpayers, which will save £2.5 billion a year by the end of the review period, will ensure that people on lower incomes are not subsidising those who are better off.

[Heidi Alexander (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Gibb]

I will not give way to the hon. Lady, because I am running out of time and I want to get to this point: child benefit for families without a higher rate taxpayer will be maintained and will be paid for children up to the age of 19 if they are in full-time education. The Government will use some of the savings from child benefit to help fund significant, above-indexation increases in child tax credit, which will be worth something like £30 in 2011-12 and £50 in 2012-13. That is in addition to the increases announced in the Budget: £150 in a year for 2011-12 and £60 in 2012-13.

I can also assure the hon. Member for Glasgow North West that none of us wants any young person to drop out of education because of financial difficulty. However, we cannot justify continuing to fund a programme that is so expensive, unresponsive and poorly targeted. Instead, we will introduce an enhanced discretionary learner support fund.

Currently, £25 million a year is given to schools, colleges and training providers through a discretionary learner support fund, to enable small payments to young people to help them meet the cost of their education. Colleges value the fund, because they are able to provide support to the young people whom they consider to be in most need. They can also respond to any changes that there might be in a student’s household income during the year. After the EMA is abolished, the fund will be significantly increased over the spending review period. The detail of the future arrangements is still being considered, but we envisage that the enhanced learner support fund will build on the principles of the current scheme to provide exceptional targeted support to students aged 16 to 18 who are experiencing financial difficulties.