1. Aaron Porter elected NUS President
The National Union of Students (NUS) has today elected as its new National President, Aaron Porter.
Aaron will succeed current NUS President Wes Streeting in June 2010 for an initial twelve month term having served for two years as NUS Vice President (Higher Education). He studied English Literature at the University of Leicester and served as a sabbatical officer at the students’ union.
He was elected with an overwhelming majority (65%) of the vote share in the first round of counting, defeating current NUS Black Students’ Officer, Bell Ribeiro-Addy (27%) and Chris Marks, Vice President (Education) of Hull University Students’ Union (4%).
2. NUS National Conference takes place in Newcastle-Gateshead
Over 1000 students and student representatives have today descended on NewcastleGateshead for this year’s NUS National Conference 2010.
The three day conference, taking place at The Sage, comes as NUS reveals over 700 parliamentary candidates have signed the NUS Vote for Students pledge saying they will not vote for a rise in student fees in the next parliament, including nearly 200 Labour candidates, more than 300 Liberal Democrat candidates and 10 Conservative parliamentary candidates.
In his opening speech today, NUS President Wes Streeting told delegates that it is vital for the future of Britain that funding for education is protected in the face of cuts and as the general election approaches. He warned that students will not pay more for less, or more for the same.
3. First-ever party leader debates take place
In an historic first, the leaders of the three major parties have taken part in a televised debate during the election campaign. The debate, the first of three due to take place before Polling Day on Thursday 6 May, focused largely on domestic policy. The other two debates which follow will look at Foreign Affairs and the Economy.
4. Parliamentary questions
Jackson, S - Copyright (Music)
Thursday 8 April 2010 | House of Commons - Written Answer
Mr. Stewart Jackson: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills whether the new regime of PPL music licensing will remove exemptions from (a) student unions and (b) educational institutions.
Mr. Lammy: Discussions between PPL and the third sector to find the best possible music licensing system are ongoing, initiated by my ministerial colleagues at the Office for the Third Sector. A number of issues remain to be resolved, and in the circumstances it has not been possible to introduce the planned legislative changes before the dissolution of Parliament prior to the forthcoming general election.
Öpik - Students (Loans)
Thursday 8 April 2010 | House of Commons - Written Answer
Lembit Öpik: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills how long on average the Student Loans Company has taken to process an application for a student loan in each year since 2005; and if he will make a statement.
Mr. Lammy: Academic year 2009-10 was the first year of operation for the new centralised Student Finance England service when all new students studying in England applied for support to the Student Loans Company (SLC), rather than to their local authority, and therefore we can only provide data for this year. The National Audit Office(1) found that the SLC took an average of 12.4 weeks to process new applications.
- (1) The Customer First Programme: Delivery of Student Finance - Report by National Audit Office, page 5 - point 6, 19 March 2010.