Oral Answers to Questions
Henry Smith Excerpts(5 years, 4 months ago)
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Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)
Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)
The Minister for Universities, Science, Research and Innovation (Chris Skidmore)
A total of 390,000 18 to 24-year olds are involved in starting businesses in the UK, and the British Business Bank has provided £52 million in start-up loans to young people since 2012. In December we launched a youth engagement programme, including a celebration of UK science, technology, engineering and maths projects and an industrial strategy competition to inspire 13 to 19-year-olds.
Chris Skidmore
Absolutely. Indeed, as a Minister also in the Department for Education, I work with that Department and understand the importance of ensuring that young people develop entrepreneurial skills. Our careers strategy launched in 2017 places a strong emphasis on our interaction with entrepreneurs. We have connected more than 2,000 schools and colleges with enterprise advisers, launched a £2.5 million investment fund to support employer encounters, and created 20 new career hubs.
Henry Smith
Sam’s Kitchen was set up by a young entrepreneur in Crawley several years ago. On meeting him recently, he reported a large number of frequent and, it seems, unnecessary inspections. How can we make sure that we get the balance right between necessary regulation and not imposing too much of a burden on young, growing businesses?
Chris Skidmore
I understand that Sam French is a young entrepreneur selling homemade gingerbread men and women. I congratulate him on his success. Perhaps he may like to send some to you to sample, Mr Speaker. I am pleased that he shares his experience with other young entrepreneurs. It is important, however, that inspections in the food industry are based on a national code of practice and are intended to give the necessary reassurances to business and consumers so that they can buy products with absolute confidence.
Oral Answers to Questions
Henry Smith Excerpts(5 years, 7 months ago)
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Claire Perry
The hon. Gentleman raises a point that is also often raised by MPs who represent other areas, such as the peninsula of Cornwall and Devon. There has always been a convention that because it costs more to deliver energy through conventional structures to those furthest parts of the UK, they bear a higher tariff. There is work ongoing, supported through BEIS innovation funding, to encourage self-generation and self-storage in many of the most remote communities—perhaps some of the things we have seen around the Orkneys with the hydrogen bus. The hon. Gentleman raises an important point. That is why the price cap Bill is so valuable and should be supported by all parties—because it caps energy prices for everyone in the UK.
Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)
Mr Richard Bacon (South Norfolk) (Con)
The Minister for Energy and Clean Growth (Claire Perry)
My hon. Friend the Member for Crawley (Henry Smith) will know—and, I am sure, celebrate—that we have led the developed world in cutting emissions in our economy. Growth in our economy went up by 72% while emissions have decreased by 43%. That is not good enough—we want to go further and faster. That is why we set out last year all the policies in the clean growth strategy and why this week the first ever Green GB Week is helping us to re-emphasise the message that growth and green go hand in hand.
Henry Smith
Earlier this month, I was pleased to welcome a Virgin Atlantic flight into Gatwick, the first ever sustainable fuels flight to land at the airport, using fuel derived from the recycled steel-making process. What can this Government do to ensure that the UK leads in this technology, which has the potential for zero carbon aviation by 2050?
Claire Perry
This is a brilliant project and an example of exactly the innovation we need to tackle one of the most insurmountable problems we face, which is airline emissions. The Government relaunched last year a £22 million industry competition on future fuels for flight and freight to stimulate exactly this sort of innovative thinking.
University of London Bill [Lords]
Henry Smith ExcerptsTuesday 16th October 2018
(5 years, 7 months ago)
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Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
I am very pleased to introduce the Bill. It is an important and, I hope, uncontroversial piece of proposed legislation. I do so partly as a constituency Member of Parliament whose constituency includes one of the prestigious member institutions of the University of London, the London Business School, and as a London MP who recognises the huge importance of the University of London overall to the economy and cultural life of our city and to our international standing.
The Bill’s primary purpose is to correct an historical anomaly and enable the various colleges and institutes that are currently members of the federal university to become universities in their own right, while also remaining a part of the University of London. The University of London was established by charter in 1836, although its history long predates that. It demonstrated an early commitment to diversity and to widening access by becoming the secular alternative to Oxford and Cambridge. The university’s present charter has been supplemented by a number of Acts of Parliament that prescribe its governance arrangements. The current arrangements are enshrined in the University of London Act 1994. I will be referring to the 1994 Act in the course of my comments.
The university was created as a federal institution in which colleges provided the teaching in accordance with the curriculum determined at the centre. For over 100 years, the university was directly funded as a single entity, distributing resources out to the colleges, all of which were originally also governed by centrally determined regulations on academic and other matters. Over the years, that position has wholly changed. The university remains a federal institution with 18 members, all of which are self-governing and autonomous, and most of which operate under separate royal charters.
Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)
I graduated from University College London in 1991, when of course that institution was part of the federation of London University. I always thought it rather odd that, when UCL left and the federation continued because of the 1994 Act, the remaining colleges in the federation were restricted. Does the hon. Lady agree that the colleges being able to obtain university status, subject to this proposed legislation passing, will increase their global standing, which is even more important as this country leaves the European Union?
Oral Answers to Questions
Henry Smith Excerpts(6 years, 2 months ago)
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Andrew Griffiths
I thank the hon. Lady for that question and particularly for the work that her Select Committee is doing in getting to the bottom of exactly what happened in Carillion. That is very important work. The Government are clear that with public sector contracts we pay in 30 days, and we expect tier 1 contractors to ensure that they pay their supply chain in 30 days too. We are determined to take action to ensure that this happens, and we are looking at what we can do to make sure not only that small businesses in the public sector supply chain get paid within 30 days, but that we do more to support private sector suppliers as well.
Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)
What support has been given to British nationals working abroad who were with Carillion?
Andrew Griffiths
The main priority for this Government has been to protect jobs here in the UK and the continuation of public sector contracts and services. The special manager, of course, has a responsibility to wind up the business to get the best value for creditors, but he is responsible for dealing with businesses overseas.
National Minimum Wage (Workplace Internships) Bill
Henry Smith Excerpts(7 years, 6 months ago)
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Victoria Atkins
Certainly it did for the years following the introduction of payments for pupillages. However, it was felt that, in the longer term, the pupillages would be of a higher quality, because a chambers would be very much focusing on making sure it got the right calibre and quality of candidate to suit its business, rather than being a bit of a factory of pupillages and encouraging people who, sadly, did not then later find better, long-term employment.
I am glad that this debate has been brought to the House, as it is important to raise awareness of when an intern is due the national minimum wage so that the 1998 Act is followed. In our current legislation, the term “intern” is not defined explicitly, and it can be ambiguous as to whether a person performing an internship also falls under the definition of “worker”. Work experience can be called a placement or an internship, and volunteering schemes that do not involve working activities are also often referred to as internships. As this is a complicated area where the line between what should be an unpaid internship and a contractual working relationship is often blurred, and can indeed be crossed without either party meaning to do so, it is most effective for the Government to offer guidance to assist employers to adopt best practice.
The Minister may well take away from this debate the point made by my hon. Friends the Members for Elmet and Rothwell and for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg) about the maximum of 28 days in any calendar year. That would be a good starting place for working out whether a person is an intern or somebody on work experience, or whether they have entered into a more contractual relationship with the person offering the experience.
It is vital that employers as well as employees are aware of the statutory provisions that are available, because some of these roles do not require the minimum wage to be paid. There is no doubt, however, that there are situations where what is referred to as an internship describes work activities, and those participating in the scheme should be paid. I applaud my hon. Friend the Member for Elmet and Rothwell for drawing attention to that ambiguity.
While I welcome the information provided by the Government through their website, gov.uk, and ACAS, I urge them to continue to review the effectiveness of the guidance they are offering in this area. I encourage all businesses to make provision to allow young people of all socioeconomic backgrounds such opportunities.
Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)
My hon. Friend is absolutely right that internships and work experience can give opportunities to young people. Many charities and small businesses could not necessarily afford to pay for internships. It is therefore important to have greater clarity on what is appropriate, and I congratulate her on asking the Government to keep this matter under review.
Victoria Atkins
I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend. I also welcome the work done by the Government to promote fair and open access to paid internships through the graduate talent pool, the social mobility business compact, and the common best practice code for high-quality internships, which ask employers to ensure that any internships they offer are paid fairly.
Alongside offering guidance, we must continue to crack down on employers who are not treating employees fairly. I welcome the fact that this year the Government have increased HMRC’s enforcement budget by £7 million, improving its ability to crack down on employers who exploit interns and fail to pay staff properly. I declare an interest in that I used to prosecute criminals for HMRC. I wish it well in its endeavours. Employers who pay workers less than the minimum wage not only have to pay back arrears of wages at current minimum wage rates, but face financial penalties of up to £20,000 per worker. I hope that the message leaves this Chamber today that it is not worth employers trying to get round the rules, and that they must treat their employees and interns fairly.
Peter Heaton-Jones
My hon. Friend makes a good point and I will seek to address it later in my remarks.
On social mobility, unpaid internships can be extraordinarily expensive for many of those wishing to go into the professional services, which are often located in the bigger cities and, in many cases, far away from rural constituencies such as mine. If young people in North Devon wish to undertake an internship in one of the larger cities, that will mean paying travel expenses and finding accommodation. For many—this goes to the heart of the point that my hon. Friend has just made—that is simply prohibitive. I do understand that that is a problem. If internships are accessible only to those with financial means, we will entrench a system where the professions are disproportionately dominated by those from families with higher incomes.
Henry Smith
As my hon. Friend has said, internships are often available only in large cities, with London being the predominant area. Does he agree that that places even more responsibility on large employers, which have the resources properly to support interns and those seeking work experience with them, to pay high costs such as those for accommodation and travel?
Peter Heaton-Jones
That is a good argument, but the difficulty is that I am not sure that the Bill addresses it. That is my problem and my challenge to my hon. Friend the Member for Elmet and Rothwell. My hon. Friend the Member for Crawley (Henry Smith) makes a good point and I will address later the internships offered by the small and medium-sized enterprises that dominate my constituency and many others.
I applaud those employers that do provide funding for internships—there are some—whether it be in the form of pay or expenses. Many charitable bodies, trade associations and universities provide bursaries or similar so that those of limited means can access internships. All these schemes are essential in ensuring that, no matter their background and financial means, people who work hard and are dedicated will achieve their goals. The schemes open the door to the opportunity of an internship.
There is of course always more that can be done. I am glad that this Government are working to promote high-quality paid internships through improving codes of practice, creating awareness campaigns and, importantly, sponsoring the graduate talent pool. These will all make internship opportunities available to those from poorer backgrounds. We must remember—this goes to the heart of our discussion—that an even greater block to accessing internships for many people is a lack of contacts. Put simply, they do not know the right people. That is often a greater block than a lack of pay, so it is right that the Government have acted with initiatives such as the graduate talent pool.
As I have already hinted, my difficulty with the Bill is the level of pay that it expects the facilitator of an internship—the employer—to pay. Broadly, as my hon. Friend the Member for Elmet and Rothwell has mentioned, there are two categories in the existing national minimum wage legislation: workers and apprentices. Workers provide a trade or service in return for remuneration and have an obligation to provide this work—I must sound as though I was an hon. and learned Member, which I assuredly am not—while apprentices receive a lower rate of pay, because although to a degree they provide the same services as workers, they receive on-the-job training. Consequently, the pay level for apprentices recognises that the employer invests time and resources in them, and they do not have to be paid as workers. In my view, interns are closer to the category of an apprentice, rather than that of a worker.
Internships provide individuals with experience and training, which helps them to deliver and gain employment. The Bill states that
“the intern meets learning objectives or gains experience of working for the employer”,
and that the internship provides
“practical experience in an occupation or profession.”
In my view, that is largely what an apprenticeship achieves. Workers, who receive the national minimum wage, do not set out to meet learning objectives or gain experience of working for the employer. That is almost ancillary to their role, which is to provide a service in return for their remuneration. Interns do not provide for the employer the same value as a worker, if I may put it that way, so their pay should not be the same. If I may say so to my hon. Friend, that is one of the flaws in his proposed Bill.