NUS Criticised by Students' Union for Lack of Communication Over Maintenance Grant Abolition
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gair rhydd | freeword Cardiff ’s student weekly Issue 1069 gair rhyddy Monday 25th January 2016 Also in this issue Advice: How to make those 2016 resolutions stick P8>> NUS criticised by Students’ Union Comment: How we respond to for lack of communication over celebrity deaths P13>> maintenance grant abolition t Welsh Students’ Unions left unaware of changes to voting in Westminster despite alleged NUS knowledge t SU sabbatical offi cers pushed for emergency motion in shadow cabinet t Cardiff Central MP describes cuts to grants as “ideological attack” on students Gair Rhydd, Vice President for Soci- media, phone and email. EXCLUSIVE eties Hannah Sterritt explained that Like Button, Sterritt also contact- Pictured: Anna Lewis the news was only revealed through ed the Speaker at Westminster to Students protest Politics: Cardiff Central race to be Twitter by a message written by NUS lobby against stopping Welsh MPs against cuts to The National Union of Students Wales President Beth Button, and from voting, encouraging others to maintenance tight at Assembly Elections P18>> (NUS) has come under criticism not by NUS UK. do the same. grants from Cardiff’s Students’ Union In her tweet, Button explained As a result, thanks to the work of (Photographer: elected officer team, after allegedly that approximately 50 per cent of Cardiff Students’ Union, the MP for Th e Weekly Bull failing to provide important infor- students in Welsh universities are Cardiff Central Jo Stevens was also via Flickr) mation about last week’s vote to cut funded by student finance England notified of the situation and was maintenance grants. and would be directly affected by able to create an emergency motion Last Tuesday, the government re- the decision. She also explained that in the shadow cabinet opposing the jected Labour’s opposition day mo- she had talked to the House of Com- decision. tion to stop the cuts to maintenance mons speaker John Bercow to con- In response to these suggestions, grants for English students. In a con- test the decision. NUS Wales explained to Gair Rhydd troversial decision, only English MPs According to Sterritt, although the that the Speaker’s decision to create were allowed to vote following the NUS are usually reliable at providing an English-only vote was made “at a debate regardless of the thousands of important information, Cardiff Stu- very late stage in a fast-moving pro- English students that attend Welsh dents’ Union were unable to procure cess, with minimal communication universities. further details from the institution and little precedent as to how it can According to one sabbatical of- on the day of the debate. be challenge.” ficer, despite NUS’s knowledge of the As a result, the officer was left It was also noted that as the gov- situation, Students’ Unions and poli- with no choice but to single-handed- ernment’s original Committee vote Science: Why have alcohol limits ticians across Wales were left una- ly inform other students’ unions and included MPs from Wales and Scot- Continued on ware of this development. Talking to Welsh MPs of the news via social land, the Union “had been working page 4 fallen again? P21>> 2 EDITORIAL Gair Rhydd Coordinator Elaine Morgan Editor Joseph Atkinson Deputy Editors the free word Carwyn Williams Anna Lewis News Students under attack Anna Lewis Joanna Beck Toby Holloway With maintenance grants at great risk and universities Advice campaigning to be exempt from FOI, we need to stand up Gwen Williams Caragh Medlicott many at Gair Rhydd believe to be unjust, ends meet with a minimal to non-ex- nancial burden on them. If this measure Joseph Atkinson and can only serve to make people’s lives istent maintenance grant and a similar goes through, it would be awful news for Comment more diffi cult. Most prominently, the maintenance loan. Th e system is by no Gair Rhydd, and more importantly aw- Em Gates elcome back to uni! I hope SU has put up a fi ght against the govern- means perfect, and the way it has been ful news for freedom of speech. Charley Griffiths everyone’s had a great ment’s proposal to abolish maintenance tested for throws up a number of issues FOI requests are necessary to obtain David Williams WChristmas and New Year grants in favour of replacing them with that mean that it is not entirely fair for hard-to-get information that is in the without (too much) exam and assign- maintenance loans, and I’d like to thank everyone. But for me, the maintenance public interest and would otherwise Columnist ment stress. At the time of writing I’m them for that. loan represents more than ‘free money’; never come out. It can reveal fi nancial Helena Hanson trying to balance managing the pa- Th e maintenance grant, simply put, it represents one of the last crumbs of mismanagement, misuse of expenses per with writing my third essay in two helps to balance the fi eld. It enables peo- generosity in a university system that and all sorts of other behaviour that uni- Politics weeks, so my apologies to the editorial ple from less-privileged backgrounds to is becoming increasingly mean to stu- versities should be held accountable for. Carwyn Williams team for being slightly less useful than be on par with those who are fortunate dents. Ironically it has been FOI requests that Luke Brett usual. Th e holidays seemed to bring with enough to have their university life fund- Our front page focuses on Cardiff have revealed the hypocrisy of some Sam Patterson them bad news story after bad news sto- ed - or at least part-funded - from home. Students’ Union’s success at bringing unis when it comes to their reasoning ry; the fl oods in the North (which, as a I do not believe that the maintenance the matter to the fl oor in Parliament, for wanting be exempted - the News Science Northerner, I’m obliged to say wouldn’t grant scheme is perfect; I receive the where it appears the NUS failed. Th ese Media Association revealed that the 20 Maria Mellor have happened in the South), a slipping highest grant possible, but I have to say are the sorts of issues that are clearly of Russell Group universities employed Lizzie Harrett world economy (which our generation that the means by which they test your paramount importance to students and just 26 members of staff who deal with are pretty used to really) and the deaths family income do not seem rigorous at therefore by bringing to the attention of FOI requests, compared to a total of Societies of two British cultural icons in David all. It feels as though the system could be Welsh MPs the fact that only English 284 ‘communication offi cers’ between Aletheia Nutt Bowie and Alan Rickman. I have to say cheated, because of the ease at which in- MPs were going to allowed to vote on them. If employing one or two members that the story that aff ected me and many formation could potentially be false - to the matter, the SU has done its job in of staff to respond to FOI requests is Taf-Od others the most, was the death of Bowie. my knowledge my family has never been protecting the rights of students. classed as too much of a fi nancial bur- Rhian Floyd Th is to me says a lot about people’s pri- asked to provide documented evidence Another issue that has been gather- den, I wonder what employing ten times orities and the power that culture has to of their income. ing pace over the Christmas break is the that number in comms offi cers would Park Life aff ect people compared to more ‘real life’ It also fails to take into account those potential exemption of universities from be classed as... Vacant trauma. students who come from a family with Freedom of Information requests. Rus- Th e SU needs to continue to stand up Th ere’s been quite bad news for uni- a good income but are expected to be sell Group universities, including Cardiff for us as students as it did so well in the Sport versity students too. Th e last few weeks more fi nancially independent. While University, are understood to be looking maintenance grant case, but it is also up Jim Harris have seen the government try a push they will always have a safety net behind to cut themselves out of FOI legislation, to students to get their voices heard and James Lloyd through a number of measures that I and them, it can be very diffi cult to make claiming that it puts too much of a fi - demonstrate against injustices. Jason Roberts Jamie Smith Social Media Editor THIS WEEK IN HISTORY: Jack Boyce GAIR RHYDD 779 Proofreaders 7/2/2005 Emily Giblett Anwen Pembery This week we go back 11 years to the good of the first ever LGBT History Month, that we old days of 2005, when most of us were still in continue to celebrate in February. Throughout Get involved primary school! At Cardiff Uni the hot topic the month students will learn about the lives Editorial conferences are was the news that an ex-student accused a top of LGBT people and their contribution to his- each Monday at 5pm. Iraqi politician, also an ex-Cardiff student, of tory. It was initially organised by the School- Proofreading takes place being a violent Saddam Hussein loyalist. Ja- sOUT campaign group, and it was hoped that from 5pm on Thursdays in mal Hafid accused Qassim Dawoud of being the event would help deal with the stigma left the media office during print Saddam’s “thug at Cardiff” at the time he was by Section 28, which was repealed two years weeks.