Unpaid Internships

Baroness Gardner of Parkes Excerpts

Monday 18th December 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

My Lords, I will have to write to the noble Baroness on the last point, but I will say that accurately predicting the number of unpaid interns in this country is extremely difficult. There are no accurate forecasts. To return to prosecutions, it is interesting to note that from a criminal perspective, we prosecute only those companies that are the most pernicious offenders but that HMRC takes action on a civil basis through the civil courts. In 2016-17, 1,134 businesses were taken through civil proceedings and we clawed back nearly £11 million for 98,000 workers. That is progress, but I recognise there is much more we can be doing.

[Baroness Gardner of Parkes (Con)]

My Lords, will the Minister assure me that any action the Government take in this respect will not damage the numbers of wonderful people volunteering for charities and various organisations, where they are doing a lot of good? That should be kept quite distinct from internship.

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

My noble friend makes a very important point; it is one of the reasons why further legislation might be difficult and would have unintended consequences. In 2015 1.93 billion hours were volunteered by people in this country. I think all noble Lords will agree that that is marvellous, but it was 7% less than the hours volunteered in 2012. We need to keep our volunteers able to do the work that they do because it is extremely valuable.