Financial Support (Students)

Debate between Joan Ruddock and Teresa Pearce

Wednesday 15th December 2010 Westminster Hall

[Teresa Pearce (Erith and Thamesmead) (Lab)]

It is a privilege to have this debate under your chairmanship, Ms Clark. I am pleased to see so many hon. Members here to talk about an important issue. I will try to keep my speech brief, so that everybody can get in to make their points and, more importantly, to ask questions.

I asked for this debate for two reasons. First, we need to highlight the effect that the decision to scrap the education maintenance allowance will have on young people throughout the country. Secondly, we need answers about how the proposed financial support scheme, the enhanced discretionary learner support fund, will work.

Last week in the main Chamber, a vote was carried that will allow university tuition fees to rise up to £9,000 in a year to plug the gaping hole in the higher education budget left by the Government’s 80% cut. I voted against that rise with other Opposition Members. The Government fail to grasp that, by cutting EMA, many young people from poorer backgrounds, particularly in constituencies such as mine, will never reach the level at which they will be able even to consider attending university. Taken together, the tuition fee increase and the scrapping of EMA are a heavy blow to young people in constituencies such as mine.

The EMA keeps many young people in Erith and Thamesmead in college or sixth form—and in some cases, it has to be said, on the straight and narrow. Their families rely on payments to cover the costs of attending college, including transport and books, and they often help top up the family budget. One of my constituents, Trudy Mackie, wrote to me recently, saying:

“I am a single parent”,

living in Thamesmead,

“and have worked full time since leaving school myself. I have managed to purchase my own home and save a little money while supporting my daughter throughout her school life…She was identified as gifted and talented, as a school student likely to do well with support, and we have hoped and aimed for her to go to university for a long time on that basis. We are very concerned about the scrapping of the EMA and how this will affect our budgets. This…really does help my daughter to do extracurricular activities”

that enhance her education, such as

“theatre trips and additional lectures…Our household will struggle without this money.”

[Joan Ruddock (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab)]

My constituent, Timar Misghina, a student, said precisely the sorts of things that my hon. Friend has just quoted. Tellingly, she said that EMA not only helps with books, transport and clothing, but helps to get her through her studies with fewer worries. It is important that, when people are trying to study, they and their families are not in a state of constant worry about money.

[Teresa Pearce]

I agree. It makes a difference if people know that they can concentrate on their education without worrying about the bus fare.

Some 43% of students at Bexley college and 38% of students at Greenwich college—the two largest colleges serving my constituency—receive EMA, the vast majority receiving the higher rate of £30 a week. Some argue that this money does not have an effect, but the principal of Bexley college, Danny Ridgeway, has confirmed that, in the past two academic years, students at his college in receipt of EMA have been more likely to pass their course than their colleagues who have not received EMA support. I believe that this positive outcome is linked to the attendance requirement attached to EMA payments.