Education Maintenance Allowance

Shabana Mahmood Excerpts

Wednesday 19th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Shabana Mahmood (Birmingham, Ladywood) (Lab)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to take part in this debate, especially as the scrapping of EMA is second only to the rise in tuition fees as the issue on which I have received the largest amount of correspondence. The Government are certainly politicising vast numbers of young people, albeit in the worst possible way and with the worst possible policies.

The Government’s decision to scrap EMA represents a vicious attack on the aspirations of young people in our country, especially the most disadvantaged. The scale of support that is being withdrawn is shocking. Our young people will bear a very heavy burden indeed; the Chancellor once stated that he would not balance the budget on the backs of the poor—a statement that fell apart as soon as he uttered it—but it seems that in addition to balancing the budget on the backs of the poor, the Government also intend to balance it on the backs of the young. The message from the Treasury Bench today is clear: if you happen to be young and poor, you’re stuffed.

The scrapping of EMA has particular resonance in my constituency of Birmingham, Ladywood. My constituency has the highest rate of unemployment in the country, and one of the reasons it is blighted by long-term unemployment is the legacy of the recession of the ’80s. The decision of the then Tory Government to walk away from young people and to say that unemployment was a price worth paying created a lost generation of young people in Birmingham, Ladywood, and across Birmingham as a whole. Now, as a result of the decisions of this Tory-Lib Dem Government, the children of that lost generation will become the new lost generation of our time. That is a cruel and deplorable state of affairs, and represents a dereliction of the Government’s duty to the young of our country.

The EMA has three main purposes—increasing participation, increasing attendance and thus increasing attainment—and achieves them because of how young people use EMA. They use it primarily for travel, which learner support funds cannot be used for. Being able to travel to the institution that offers the best course for each student is crucial; it may be the single most important reason why attainment rates have improved. Students also use EMA to buy books and other materials.

Because EMA provides additional financial assistance, students have the financial leeway either not to take a part-time job or to decrease the hours they work, enabling them to focus on getting the best possible grades and qualifications to make a better future for themselves. That is a point made forcefully to me by staff and students using the Connexions service in Birmingham, which supports young people in Birmingham to go into education, employment or training. The service has already faced massive cuts, including the closure of the Aston branch in my constituency, but it does crucial work.

Students supported by Connexions staff have written to me with their views about EMA. All those students and the staff who work with them tell me that without EMA they would not have stayed in post-16 education, or would not have done as well. All of them have used their EMA for help with travel and equipment. My discussions with them have shown me that EMA is especially crucial for students on vocational courses.

As someone who represents a constituency that is 60% non-white, I am also especially concerned about the effect that removal of EMA will have on ethnic minority students and their post-16 participation and attainment rates. Some 70% of British Pakistani students in full-time education receive EMA. The figure is 84% for Bangladeshi students, 56% for black African students and 50% for black Caribbean students. In that context, it is totally unacceptable that the Government have failed to carry out an equality impact assessment on its policy of scrapping EMA.

The Birmingham and Solihull principals group has told me:

“There are going to be a lot of casualties out of this who will never escape poverty as a result of this cut”.

I hope that Government Members will bear that in mind when they vote.