Employment Rights Bill

Debate between Lord Hunt of Wirral and Lord Holmes of Richmond

Report stage
Wednesday 16th July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to move Amendment 103 in my name. As this is the first time I have spoken on the Bill on Report, I declare my relevant interests as set out in the register as a member of the global advisory board of Endeavour plc and of the science and technology advisory committee of the Crown Estate, and I had a speaking engagement with the FCSA earlier this year.

Amendment 103 is incredibly simple and extraordinarily important for all those young people who have the most appalling start to their career through finding themselves on the wrong end of an unpaid internship. This has been going for decades and it goes on in some of our smartest industries in the 21st century.

The amendment is a reincarnation of a Private Member’s Bill that I brought forward in 2017. I am delighted to say that when I brought that Bill, which is now Amendment 103 to this Bill, it received full-throated support from the Labour Opposition, whom I thank. It also received full-throated support from the TUC and the noble Baroness, Lady O’Grady, whom I thank.

The amendment simply seeks to give young people the right to have a positive experience—often their first—of entering the labour market. Unpaid internships are already illegal under the National Minimum Wage Regulations, but this amendment further clarifies and specifies what work experience is and, crucially, what it is not. It stops work experience being used as a cover for unpaid internships.

When I drafted the amendment, my first inclination was to have work experience paid from day one. But after wide consultation with businesses and trade unions and across civil society, it was clear that four weeks was the right point to suggest that young people—indeed, any person—could do genuine work experience, overseeing, learning and replicating tasks. If that person is brought on board and is doing work from day one, they are protected by the National Minimum Wage Regulations and are entitled to pay. Work experience has a vital role to play in our society and, as the results of my consultation underpin, four weeks is the right point at which to set the limit.

When the amendment was debated in Committee, when sadly I could not be present, a number of views were put forward that suggested there were difficulties with it because unscrupulous employers could simply have numerous rounds of four-week or part-of-four-week periods, but that is not accurate. The wording describes it as a

“continuous or non-continuous period which exceeds four weeks”,

so the drafting already caters for employers who might seek to get around it by having continuous periods of unpaid work experience.

As one young person put it to me, you cannot pay the rent or pay for food with a glowing CV. Ultimately, it is just a question of talent. Why would we want businesses and organisations not to be able to take from the widest, broadest and most diverse talent pool to go into these roles? Some of these roles are at the classier end of the labour market, but it goes through all strata of the labour market. Surely these positions should be open to all on a fair and equitable basis. That is what this amendment would allow for.

We have the ideal opportunity with this Bill to put this right. It seems more than extraordinary, with so many of the other issues that are covered in this not unsizeable Bill, that there is nothing on unpaid internships, nothing to protect those people who find themselves being exploited at the beginning of their career. I ask the Minister: if not this Bill, what Bill? If not this amendment, will the Government not bring forward some wording to end this pernicious practice, which still prevails in 21st-century Britain—a desperate, dispiriting, Dickensian practice that still goes on across our labour market? Why would the Government, alongside all their other measures, not take this opportunity to close this loophole? It would allow young people, or any person seeking to get their first foothold in the labour market, to have a positive, supportive work experience into paid employment. I very much look forward to the Minister’s response. I beg to move.

[Lord Hunt of Wirral (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for introducing this important debate. As he has pointed out, the challenge is to strike the right balance. We must protect individuals from being exploited or drawn into extended unpaid roles that are in effect jobs by another name, but we also must avoid placing undue burdens on organisations whose motives are benign and whose placements offer genuine social and developmental value. I welcome the debate that the amendment has prompted, and I hope that as the Bill progresses, the Government will engage closely with stakeholders to ensure that any future regulations achieve the twin goals of fairness for individuals and viability for those offering valuable early opportunities.