Ken Livingstone has called on the Government to think again after ministers confirmed cuts to the Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA) scheme.

EMA are means-tested allowances of £10, £20 and £30 paid to 14-to-19 year olds who stay in education and come from families where annual household income is below £30,810.

There are 95,219 recipients of EMA in London. 80 percent of those receive the top rate of £30 a week which would equate to 76,175 top rate recipients losing their EMA. The hardest hit boroughs will be Newham (5,721 current EMA recipients), Croydon (4446), Brent (4232), Ealing (4007) and Lambeth (3799).

Ken Livingstone visited BSix sixth form college in Hackney today and addressed a meeting of students. He said

The abolition of EMA threatens to deter thousands of teenagers in London from learning new skills and gaining qualifications and experience which will lead to a job.”

Now more than ever we need to encourage teenagers to stay on after 16, to gain new skills and experience which will enable them to work and fulfil their potential. It’s time for the government to think again and reverse it’s decision to scrap EMA’s.