According to a poll conducted by Yougov out today, almost half of the British public oppose the abolition of the Education Maintenance Allowances (EMA) and would prefer to keep the current scheme and not replace it as the government plans. This will come as a blow for the coalition and many coalition backbench MPs, as only two MPs from coalition parties voted against abolishing EMA on the vote last month that the Save EMA campaign successfully lobbied to get.

Even more interesting, is that this poll shows that a substantial amount of voters who voted for both coalition parties at the last election oppose the abolition of the EMA; as 50 % who voted Lib Dem in 2010 oppose abolition of EMA, and 42% who still intend to vote Lib Dem also oppose the abolition of EMA. Something that might also give backbench Tory MPs concern is that 27% who voted Conservative in 2010 and 25% who still intend to vote Conservative also oppose abolition of EMA.

This will come as a big blow to Lib Dem MPs as only two voted against scrapping EMA in the vote on Wednesday 19^th January. Especially concerned will be the seven London Lib Dem MPs as according to the poll almost half of Londoners oppose the government’s decision. MPs such as Sarah Teather and Simon Hughes, who both have large amounts of teenagers on EMA in their constituencies, will find this poll worrying reading.

There are just over 600,000 teenagers in England alone who receive EMA and 4 out of 5 (80%) come from families where household income is under £21,000 a year and the Yougov poll found that 53% of people from C1,D, E socio-economic backgrounds, the group who are most likely to receive EMA, oppose the government’s plans.

The Government may find this poll even more worrying as it appears almost half of women oppose their plans to scrap EMA.

However, earlier this week Iain Duncan Smith MP declared his support for marriage tax breaks. Following up David Cameron comments in the Daily Mail only last December that he will bring in his Marriage Tax Incentive, regardless of the complaints of Lib Dem coalition colleagues. The estimated loss to public finances of a Marriage Tax Incentive is £550 million according to the Tory manifesto and a “deadweight” of 3 out 10 (i.e. those who would get married regardless of the £3 a week incentive) according to the IFS.

It would be interesting to know whether women would support a bribe to get married over support to get an education…