Unpaid Work Experience (Prohibition) Bill [HL]

Lord Haskel Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 27th October 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Haskel (Lab)]

My Lords, last week Mr Chris Willard from the Financial Conduct Authority came to your Lordships’ House and briefed us on its recent survey, Understanding the Financial Lives of UK Adults, a paper that tries to understand consumers as people and observe their financial behaviour and experience in the context of their everyday lives. It does so by dividing the population into six age groups. Of UK adults aged 18 to 24 it says that,

“satisfaction with overall financial circumstances is amongst the lowest of any age group”.

If any confirmation is needed of intergenerational unfairness as far as money is concerned, that report provides it. As this debate illustrates, part of that unfairness is the way in which some young people are exploited through unpaid work experience. No speaker in this debate is content with such exploitation and unfairness, and I too welcome the Bill as a step in the right direction to correct it. This is an opportunity to show commitment not only to young people but to their parents, which is important.

Of course proper internship has genuine value, as the noble Baroness, Lady Brady, told us. It helps firms to make a better judgment about potential employees and helps young people to decide whether they want to do a particular line of work. Both sides gain experience and benefit from it. Yes, it requires supervision and flexibility, as my noble friend Lord Winston explained, but organisations such as the Prince’s Trust and the National Careers Service try to arrange this kind of thing in such a way that both parties feel valued and vested.

The noble Lord, Lord Holmes, told us that for years some less scrupulous businesses and organisations, large and small, have exploited and misled young people by presenting work as an internship, especially in those sectors and areas where few jobs are available. As others have said, the Low Pay Commission, the Social Mobility Commission and Matthew Taylor’s recent report have all criticised that practice. The social mobility survey showed overwhelming support for the points made by the noble Lord, and indeed he and my noble friend Lady Morgan gave us the numbers. The provisions in the Bill do something about this situation by identifying the same 18-to-26 age group as in the FCA report, and saying that for this group work experience cannot extend beyond four weeks. As the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, explained, it also attempts to clarify the terminology. That is very important because it puts everything into the scope of work, however it might be described.

Here in Parliament our major concern is Brexit, but out there a major debate is going on about the effect that decisions made by algorithms and artificial intelligence are having on our daily lives, and how they are being used to eliminate people as a cost. Surely part of our response in Parliament must be that we have to be much more socially and emotionally aware of this. The Bill before us is an opportunity to show awareness towards 18-to-24 year-olds, the age group that will be most affected by these new technologies. This is another reason to support the Bill.

I too have spoken to some young people about the Bill. Many told me they felt that interns were given rather menial tasks. They felt that paying interns would encourage employers to give them more skilled work, from which both employer and intern would benefit. Students already face a lot of debt when they come out of university, averaging more than £50,000 with interest, which equates to them potentially taking jobs below their skill level rather than opting for an internship that could benefit them in the longer run because they need the money. Paid internships would consequently enable students to have more choice over what they wanted to do after leaving university.

This is not the first time that Parliament has tried to deal with this issue; the excellent Library brief lists the debates and Bills. I put it to the Minister that this long list emphasises the need for the Bill. Like the noble Lord, Lord Mitchell, I hope the Minister will not say that although the Government have “every sympathy” with the purpose of the Bill, it is unnecessary because the law already prohibits this kind of exploitation. That may well be true, but in practice—in real life—the law is not working, a point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell.

We all know that, from time to time, the law does not deliver what it says, and this is one such case. If the Government are sympathetic to the plight of these young people and the law is not working, why not accept this Private Member’s Bill, which makes it easier for the Government to achieve their purpose?

There is an obvious need for the Bill, as all noble Lords have said. The Prime Minister herself referred to this when welcoming Matthew Taylor’s review. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, on introducing this simple Bill, and I hope that the Government will welcome the opportunity to support it.