Oral Answers to Questions

Hazel Blears Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd May 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

The pupil premium is currently worth £1.25 billion, and that will double to £2.5 billion by the end of this Parliament. That is additional money on top of the baseline funding provided to schools. Last year, on a per pupil basis, the pupil premium was worth about £480. It is now worth £600 and will go on to increase. Given those statistics, it is remarkable that Labour in Manchester voted to scrap the pupil premium altogether. How on earth is that going to help social mobility?

[Hazel Blears (Salford and Eccles) (Lab)]

In his speech on social mobility this morning, the Deputy Prime Minister said:

“It is my strongest political conviction that…if we have a chance to open up success to all, we must seize it.”

What is he going to do to put an end to the scandal of unpaid internships, particularly in politics, the media and our creative industries?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I pay tribute to the right hon. Lady’s work on internships, not least in this place as part of the Speaker’s Panel. As she knows, the legislation is clear: if an intern is, in effect, doing work that should be remunerated, he or she should be remunerated. There are cases of interns doing work that falls outside that legal definition. Having looked closely at the issue, and she and I have corresponded on this, we have decided that it could be self-defeating if we sought to outlaw altogether across the piece—not least, for instance, in charities—some unpaid internships. I agree, however, that even in those cases, it is incredibly important to ensure that internships are available to everybody, and that basic costs, such as travel costs and lunch costs, are properly covered, even in those cases.