About
Welcome to the Save EMA website!
This is a progressive political campaign with the sole aim to provide a voice to the over half a million poorest young Britons in this country who face the potential loss of this allowance.
Even if the EMA is not applicable to you or your household please support our campaign as its sole hope is to protect the support given to the poorest young people in our society.
People who are just like you and who need the support we give to enable them to have the same chances and opportunities as everyone else within the education system has regardless of income or wealth.
Campaign Aims
- Get every Party standing at the General Election this spring to be as clear as possible about where they stand on EMA.
- Get those Parties who oppose EMA to change their policy.
- Give a voice to those students currently receiving EMA to be able to voice their support for EMA.
- To increase awareness of EMA.
The Dividing Lines
One of the aims of this campaign is to make as clear as possible where every party stands on this, because those who receive the EMA clearly support the grants.
The Labour Government clearly supports the EMA as it was their own policy, however there is still more that needs to be done to make sure that as many people who can receive EMA know about and apply.
If the Tories refuse to raise the school leaving age then they need to protect EMA. The campaign has so far managed to get David Cameron say “yes” to support the EMA, however when asked the Conservative Central Head Quarters to confirm what he said they refused and instead this was their response:
“We [are] currently talking to headteachers now about how best to ensure those in receipt of EMA can derive more benefit from school.”
Not exactly a firm commitment…
What’s more worrying is that many influential right-wing think-tanks and lobbyists publicly campaign for it to be axed! Also, Conservative party back benchers and those standing for election this spring don’t support it on the whole. This is shown by how few have signed our EDM supporting EMA.
The Lib Dem policy is hard to understand. They appear to oppose the bonuses paid to students but it’s not entirely sure whether they oppose the policy all together. Please contact us if you know? But what we can ascertain is that their MPs by and large seem more friendly towards EMA than Tory MPs.
The SNP administration in Scotland has NOT stood by the EMA. For example, they have this academic year phased out payments of £10 and £20 and lowered the threshold to claim EMA to £19,000.
NUS Scotland opposes the SNP plans and recon it could lead to almost 8,000 students dropping out this year alone.
Therefore, we need to know if SNP MPs at Westminster would support possible Conservative plans to axe the EMA? Or if they plan to collude with the Conservative party in a future parliament to follow the SNP’s cuts in EMA in Scotland?
Other nationalist parties such as Plaid Cymru don’t appear to have an opinion on the matter, although please contact us if you know otherwise!
P.S.> if you know any information about EMA in Northern Ireland, such as the stance of the main political parties, please email: [email protected]