Unpaid Work Experience (Prohibition) Bill [HL]

Baroness Morgan of Huyton Excerpts

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

[Baroness Morgan of Huyton (Lab)]

I applaud the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, for bringing forward the Bill and for his brilliant speech. Frankly, I think he said it all for us.

I draw attention to my interests on the register. I should probably add a personal interest too: I have somewhat lived this subject since my son set up the campaign group Intern Aware—to which Lord Holmes referred—with a friend at university. My son is now 27, and still campaigning, so this issue has been going on for quite a while. It is interesting that the type of legislation needed has become crystal clear.

My more pertinent interests are these: I advise the education charity Ark, which has academies and free schools in London, Birmingham, Portsmouth and Hastings, all serving very disadvantaged communities. I also chair Ambition School Leadership, a charity that trains and develops hundreds of school leaders each year—from heads of departments through to senior leaders, head teachers, executive head teachers and CEOs of multi-academy trusts—in challenging schools, all serving poor communities and all working with disadvantaged young people.

I understand why the Bill is needed and how tough it is both to raise the aspirations of young people in many of these communities and to open up opportunities in a proper and fair way. At times, it almost feels as if every time progress is made and barriers are broken, a new barrier is erected, to make progress for disadvantaged students more difficult again. The new barrier, in the last decade or so, is unpaid internships. About a third of graduate internships are still unpaid and, as we know very well, some sectors of the economy, such as the creative industries and media, are particularly bad.

Some 62% of businesses take on interns. Many of those are in London; there are more in London than anywhere else. So what does that mean for someone living outside London, with no contacts or family or family friends who can help? We have all had briefings from the Sutton Trust, the Social Mobility Commission and others. I will not rehearse them all; we all know them. Suffice to say, as a country, we need all the talent we can develop.

What I love about the Bill is that it is simple, practical and pragmatic. I know those are not necessarily terribly popular things at the moment, in any of our parties, but often the best legislation ticks those boxes. What is clear is that the Bill does not confuse a couple of week’s work experience, which all of us would support, with an unpaid internship, which is where we have to take action.

In July 2016, the newly elected Prime Minister, Theresa May, said:

“We will build a better Britain not just for the privileged few”.


Here is a very simple, straightforward chance to do just that. This issue has gone on long enough. There have been enough reviews and enough prevarications. Will the Government sort it out?

In this House, on 11 March 2015, the then Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, in response to an amendment on this issue from the noble Lord, Lord Mitchell—who has also been dedicated to trying to sort out this issue for a long time—said:

“Internships are not formally defined and therefore the Government do not collect reliable information on a consistent basis that would allow the robust provision of data sought in the amendment. The Government have undertaken research on wider issues that may relate to internships, such as social mobility. We need to be properly informed of the issues around internships to ensure that policy is set appropriately to maximise flexibility and prevent exploitation. As part of our employment status review, the Government are gathering information through consultation with stakeholders to understand both the current position of groups in the labour market and whether future changes are appropriate. This includes internships and will no doubt provide useful information and data for future discussions … There must be more that the Government can do—that is why we have undertaken a review of employment status”.—[Official Report, 11/3/15; cols. 720-21.]


As we know, that review of employment status has now reported. In his review this year, Matthew Taylor said:

“There have been calls for a separate ‘intern’ status in employment law but we believe this is unnecessary … If a person is obtaining something of value from an internship, they are most likely to be a worker and entitled to the National Minimum or Living Wage. The Government should ensure that exploitative unpaid internships, which damage social mobility in the UK, are stamped out. The Government should do this by clarifying the interpretation of the law and encouraging enforcement action taken by HMRC in this area”.


We have had the clarity and the research and we have the data. This has gone on long enough. If the Government do not say clearly that they will sort out this unfairness, this ceiling on opportunity, we can collectively draw only one conclusion: it is all warm words. I look forward to hearing a clear response from the Minister.

--- Later in debate ---

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

In response to the point made by the noble Baroness, there have been some prosecutions, and we think that they will increase as the measures that we are taking improve. It is true that if an individual undertaking work experience has an issue, they have the right to approach ACAS on a confidential basis, so they will be able to complain about the treatment they have received. I will come on to that because there is a little more that I can say about it. They can also go to a citizens advice bureau. The confidential aspect is terribly important. Another noble Lord made the point that it is not always very easy for a young person who is trying to get on to complain in that way, so there is more work to be done.

As a result of the additional resources that I have mentioned, HMRC has been able to effectively run the Promote programme. Promote provides information to both employers and workers to tackle non-compliance before it occurs. In 2016-17, the Promote team reached over 250,000 employers, workers and their intermediaries through a combination of webinars, targeted mailshots, face-to-face contact, digital contact and project work with specific sector bodies. We hope to see this number increase as the year progresses. We want to continue to support workers and businesses, particularly our small businesses, of which there are over 5.4 million. We want to raise awareness of the law to improve compliance so that business feels empowered to offer these types of opportunities to everybody.

I will give the noble Baroness a little more detail. ACAS offers a free and confidential phone line providing advice for workers and employers. Any worker who thinks that they may be underpaid or, wrongly, not paid at all should contact ACAS or Citizens Advice. We recognise that workers may not feel confident enough to make a complaint about their employer, especially if they are starting out in their career, as my noble friend Lord Holmes said. Therefore, ACAS offers a confidential service; the complainant can remain anonymous. If there is a case to answer, ACAS will forward the case to HMRC, which follows up every single complaint.

I turn briefly to the Taylor review, which was raised in the debate. As my noble friend Lord Holmes will be aware, the Government are committed to stamping out exploitative work experience. Earlier this year, the Prime Minister asked Matthew Taylor to run an independent review into the UK’s modern employment practices. Matthew looked at a number of themes, including the issue of unpaid interns. The report is comprehensive and detailed. I note that Matthew Taylor did not recommend legislative change but, instead, focused on increased enforcement—a point that I made earlier. However, the Government will give the review the careful consideration that it deserves and we will respond in full later this year.

In fact, Matthew Taylor’s recommendation is particularly relevant to this Private Member’s Bill—a point raised by my noble friend Lady Stedman-Scott. The report states:

“The Government should ensure that exploitative unpaid internships … are stamped out. The Government should do this by clarifying the interpretation of the law and encouraging enforcement action taken by HMRC in this area”.


I make it clear that I welcome the sentiments and intentions of my noble friend. Noble Lords should rest assured that we will create the conditions necessary for all workers to receive the minimum wage that they are entitled to. We want every individual to have the best chance in life. We also want every young person to have the opportunity to experience what the working world is like. My noble friend Lady Stedman-Scott raised the interesting idea of the Government perhaps working harder to penetrate so-called “opportunity areas”. I have taken note of her point and will pass it on to the relevant department.

[Baroness Morgan of Huyton]

With respect to the noble Viscount, can he explain more clearly why we should “rest assured”, as he said? In this debate there has been strong support from all sides of the House for a simple clarification and change to the law that will deliver what we are all seeking, which is the differentiation between work experience and an unpaid internship. However, nothing that the Government have done has changed the situation. In fact, if anything, it is getting worse—we have heard about lots of real-life examples in the House today. Therefore, with the greatest respect, I am not convinced that the Minister has set out anything that leaves any of us who have spoken feeling that we can rest assured.

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

Two or three Peers have said that there are flaws in the Bill. I would not necessarily go that far, but the tenet of my argument is that it is enforcement that counts. As I said earlier, we are making great efforts to improve enforcement in this area. The point is that there has to be a distinction between the different types of work. If somebody is defined as a worker, they are doing work for which they should receive remuneration from day one; otherwise, we could be led to form a new definition of, say, a work experience worker, but I have made it clear that we believe there would be some unintended consequences in so doing.