Unpaid Work Experience (Prohibition) Bill [HL]

Baroness Jenkin of Kennington Excerpts

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

[Baroness Jenkin of Kennington (Con)]

My Lords, what an incredible privilege it is to speak in another amazing debate in this House, made all the more powerful by the individual stories that we are hearing. I pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Holmes, not just for his powerful arguments today but for his inspirational work, not only on the Bill but on social mobility and related matters. He is a fantastic role model and this Chamber is lucky to have someone of his experience leading on the Bill. As a result of his media performances over the past week or so, many more people are now aware of the issues. The Bill has much support from many organisations and, certainly, from many individuals who feel that they are missing out under the current rules.

I understand that the Government feel that the Bill is unnecessary because interns are already eligible for the national minimum wage, if they meet the definition of “worker”. But there are loopholes and a lack of clarity, as the noble Lord has pointed out. I urge the Government to think carefully about the questions raised in the Chamber today.

Katherine was an unpaid intern at a charity working on anti-slavery and poverty projects. She lived in Essex but the charity would pay London travel expenses only, that is a London travel card each day. At the end of the month, Katherine was hundreds of pounds out of pocket. She said: “When I look back on it, it was a huge expense for me at the time. Internships are only for privileged people living in the capital. I don't come from a well-off family; my dad is a labourer and my mum works in a call centre. The internship definitely opened doors for me; it was all I talked about in my interview for my current job, but the irony of working for free while working on anti-slavery and poverty reduction projects was not lost on me”.

I have a girl helping me at the moment—paid by me—who is currently working as a paralegal in a paid internship. She has done two completely unpaid internships and one internship with expenses only. She had no idea that there was even the opportunity for her to be paid under the current legislation.

The number of internships has risen dramatically, and 31% of university graduates working as interns are doing so for no pay. As we know from the briefing we have all had, the Sutton Trust estimates that there are at least 21,000 unpaid interns working in the UK at any one time. Dr Angus Holford, of the Institute for Social and Economic Research at the University of Essex, used the destination of leavers from higher education to study what happened to students who were on unpaid internships six months after graduating from their first degree. The study confirmed that graduates from better-off backgrounds were more likely to be accepted for good internships that promise a relatively high labour market return.

There are increasing examples of best practice too. Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust has recently changed its work experience programme. Medical work experience on your UCAS form is critical to gaining an offer from a medical school. Imperial now liaises directly with a wide range of schools and gives work experience to those students the schools recommend rather than dealing with hundreds of parents. I believe other organisations should follow that example. On average, people complete seven placements before getting a job, which illustrates how important they have become in securing full-time employment and the potentially far-reaching consequences for those unable to land them.

Before I sit down I would like to raise the related issue of youth full-time social action and make the point in the strongest possible terms that this is completely separate from unpaid work experience or internships. Charities utilising full-time volunteers are exempted from minimum wage legislation under Section 44 of the 1998 Act which covers the definition of voluntary workers. The main issue the Bill raises for organisations such as City Year UK, which I have a relationship with, and other charities that deploy full-time volunteers is that it once again underlines the need for a distinguishable legal status for those participating in youth full-time social action in order to clarify how it is different from unpaid work experience and internships and better to support and recognise full-time volunteers. Youth full-time social action can change lives, and full-time volunteers deserve so much more than to be categorised as NEETs. I urge the Government to look at this issue.

Modern day slavery is thriving and is part funded by the rise in unpaid internships. My noble friend Lord Holmes has made a powerful argument and I hope the Government will look very carefully at the issue.