Labour Students exists to fight for a better deal for all students.
We have campaigned and lobbied on issues as diverse as free prescriptions, cheaper TV licences, more street lighting in student areas and better funding support arrangements. Our autonomous Liberation campaigns decide the issues on which they will fight for equality. Labour Students make a difference in their local area with Labour Students in the Community. And each year, we launch a Priority Campaign which Labour Clubs up and down the country take on to their campus.
Labour Students and the Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) joined forces in 2006 to "Make Child Poverty History".
Supporting the "Make Child Benefit Count" campaign, Labour Students and CPAG called on the Government to equalise child benefit so that parents were given the same amount for their second and any subsequent children as for their first.
The Government was also lobbied to grant pregnant women child benefit during their pregnancy, rather than waiting for the child to be born. Persuaded of the arguments, the Government has announced that women will now receive child benefit from the 29th week of their pregnancy.
Working in partnership with the Terrence Higgins Trust, Labour Students launched its "Sex, Lives & Politics" campaign, lobbying the Government to strengthen its commitment to improving sexual health set out in the White Paper "Choosing Health".
Labour is the first party in government to have put sexual health at the forefront of health policy — a move which came at a critical time when sexual health generally was declining. "Sex, Lives & Politics" aimed to put pressure on the Government to deliver on the promises made in "Choosing Health" and to raise awareness of the importance of a responsible attitude to sexual health amongst students. Dozens of MPs supported an Early Day Motion in Parliament, and Student Unions across the country passed policy in favour of the campaign.
One of the key aims of the campaign was to lobby the Government to reduce VAT on condoms from 17.5% to 5%. In the 2005 Budget, Gordon Brown announced that this would be done, putting young people's sexual health at the top of the Government's agenda.