Unpaid Work Experience (Prohibition) Bill [HL]

Baroness Stedman-Scott Excerpts

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

[Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)]

My Lords, earlier today somebody said to me that they did not much like the idea of being here on a Friday. I am very pleased to be here on a Friday discussing this important issue, and it is really good to be in a Chamber full of people whose hearts are beating in concert on such an important matter. I declare my interests, as can be read in the register. I am genuinely pleased to be able to speak in this debate to confirm my support for the Bill and congratulate my noble friend Lord Holmes on bringing it to this House. His call to action could not be clearer or more transparent.

There are two clauses in the Bill. Clause 1 prohibits unpaid work experience lasting longer than four weeks by making it compulsory for employers to pay the national minimum wage to individuals undertaking such work experience. I am also pleased to read that a YouGov poll found that that limit is supported by two-thirds of businesses, with only one in eight opposing it. They will soon cotton on—we should not worry too much about that—but it would be helpful to know the reason for their opposition. I cannot find one myself, other than cost. My experience of business in this field is that it is open and committed to giving young people the chance to make the most effective transition from school to work.

The matter of unpaid internships was included in Matthew Taylor’s review of employment practices. The report states:

“it is clear to us that unpaid internships are an abuse of power by employers and extremely damaging to social mobility”.

Alan Milburn, who chairs the Social Mobility Commission, said:

“Unpaid internships are a modern scandal which must end. Internships are the new rung on the career ladder. They have become a route to a good professional job. But access to them tends to depend on who, not what you know and young people from low-income backgrounds are excluded because they are unpaid. They miss out on a great career opportunity and employers miss out from a wider pool of talent. Unpaid internships are damaging for social mobility. It is time to consign them to history”.


I hope that that is what we will be able to do.

I know from my experience of young people who struggle to get a job because they lack experience, but they cannot get the experience because they cannot get a job—or, in the words of my noble friend Lord Holmes, they are unable to get experience because they cannot afford to work for it. The value of work experience is critical for young people. I have seen first-hand the difference that it can make and, as I see it, there are two parts to it. First, as the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, mentioned, there is experiencing the world of work; then, there is work experience. These are two parts of the journey for a young person. Ideally, experiencing the world of work should start as early as possible. I cannot remember the detail, and I do not want to quote something that is inaccurate, but the more times that a young person, early in primary school, has contact with and access to business, the more likely that their networks and understanding of the workplace will be relevant to them. Employers should visit schools, and schools should visit employers.

I remember taking some young people to an employer’s premises, and he really put a show on for them. It was beautiful. He was asking them questions, and they asked him how much he earned, and he managed not to tell them that but to give them a good answer. He asked them what they might do, and a little boy said, “I want to be a boss like you”. “Why do you want to be a boss like me?”. “Well, you get a nice car, you can tell everybody what to do, you can go home when you want and you can have lovely holidays”. I saw this man’s face change, and he said, “Just let me tell you what I have to do as a boss. I have to sell a certain number of products every week so that I can pay all my staff’s salaries. Then I have to sell some more products so that I can pay the bank back”. Suddenly, the penny was dropping, even in that young mind.

I can also tell you about a young lad whose mum had a new man in her life. Well, good for her, but they had both decided that there was now no room in their relationship for him. One of my colleagues at Tomorrow’s People found him via some good community people, who said that he was living in a tent in the woods—I mean, it was terrible. So off my colleague went, found him, took him back to the office and we paid for him to stay in a bed and breakfast for a week so at least he had a decent roof over his head and something to eat. We spoke to him for ages about what he would like to do. He said, “I’ve got no idea”. We asked him what sort of business he would like to work in and he said, “I’ve no idea”. “You’re going to help us out here,” we said. “Do you want to work in an office?”. “Oh no”, he said, “I want to work outside”. So we found a landscape gardener who said that he would take him. Right from the word go, there was a financial transaction—I do not know the detail, but there was one—and he was able to really add value to that place of work. He was then taught to drive, and the boss paid for it. So those were all great things. He was experiencing work, but he was also experiencing respect and decency, which so many people have spoken about today. When I introduced the boss and the young lad to the Chancellor, George Osborne, he was asked whether he liked working where he did and he said, “Yes, Mr Osborne—every time I take that van out, you get £60 in VAT”. He understood; the boss valued him and he valued the boss.

The other point that I would like to raise is about not only the value but the accessibility of such an experience. I am right behind this Bill—please be under no illusions—but I am not sure that it is going to stop the practice, which has happened to me, whereby someone will ask, “Debbie, can you please take my son for a couple of weeks, keep him out of trouble, keep him occupied and give him a bit of experience?”. That is what happens. We need to have access to really good, well-managed experiences, but the black book will prevail. I cannot think that there is anybody in this Chamber who has not been called. People will ring and say, “Do you know Baroness Brady? Can you ask if she can do this?”. It happens all the time, and I do not think that the Bill goes far enough to try to do something to make sure that everybody gets the opportunity where we can.

I had a rummage in my brain—it did not take too long, as noble Lords can imagine—and I wondered whether there was something that we could do to put internships into the apprenticeship system, so that they are on a register and lots of people can refer people to them. Can we not start putting internships into these new opportunity areas so that business has a register of them and everybody gets access to them? I, for one, would be more than happy to sit down with the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, because he is a good chap, and any others in the Chamber, to find out how, without having to put legislation into place—but if that is what it takes, it takes—we can make sure that we have a system whereby people have the opportunity, whoever they are, wherever they have come from, however much their mum and dad love them, to go for one of these internships. As the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, so eloquently put it, we live in a world where not everybody gets an equal chance. Our young people today, I believe, think that maybe everybody wants the equal chance to be unequal, and I hope that this Bill knocks that on the head.