National Minimum Wage (Workplace Internships) Bill

Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts

Friday 4th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Nuttall]

rose—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. We do not want to hear too much on that, because the hon. Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) is coming to the conclusion of his speech. Do not worry: five other Members wish to speak. I want other Members to take part in the debate. I would not want to close the debate down too quickly.

[Mr Nuttall]

I am grateful to you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and I shall deal with the intervention fairly briefly. My hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg) raises an important point, and I apologise for not going into as much detail on it as I perhaps should have. I said in an intervention that the Bill nowhere refers to volunteers. It is silent on the issue of volunteers. When I pressed my hon. Friend the Member for Elmet and Rothwell on that, he rather bizarrely started talking about the exclusions—the people to whom the Bill does not apply—but it does not say “a volunteer” anywhere in the list of exclusions. I think that volunteers are included in the Bill by definition, unless they are covered by the catch-all, get-out-of-jail-free card in clause 3(1)(d), to which I referred earlier. It sets out that a person is excluded under the Bill if they meet

“the terms of a definition set out in regulations”.

It may be that, for some reason unknown to me, my hon. Friend thought, “I’ll leave this problem to the Minister to solve”—and there is a real problem in the Bill: what do we do with volunteers? I will not attempt to go down that path and sort out the thicket of problems that arise from the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset. There is a genuine problem with those who do a mix of things—who sometimes volunteer, and sometimes work in a shop, or a charity’s commercial arm. That point is not clear. It is quite likely that those sorts of issues will finish up in the courts and before the industrial tribunals. It will be a bun fight, and a money-making scheme for lawyers. [Interruption.] My hon. Friend the Member for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins) is positively delighted by that.

I entirely accept that my hon. Friend the Member for Elmet and Rothwell is well intentioned in bringing forward the Bill. I have tried to draw out some of the genuine problems that I see with it, and I hope that on considering the arguments advanced against it, he will withdraw it. I will continue to oppose the Bill, and I urge the House to do the same.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I am sorry to intervene on my hon. Friend’s speech at such an early stage, but last year we established a tradition of congratulating the Chairman of Ways and Means on the brilliant way in which he carried out the lottery to ensure that our hon. Friend the Member for Elmet and Rothwell (Alec Shelbrooke) came third in the ballot and had this Bill to introduce. Perhaps my hon. Friend would like to say a few words on that subject.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Let us assume that he does not need to, and we will get the lottery done shortly.

[Philip Davies]

There are so many things on which to congratulate the Chairman of Ways and Means that it would take me far too long to go through the list, so I shall refrain from doing so.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

May I offer a piece of advice to my hon. Friend, who I know is interested in making money in other ventures? Perhaps next time he would like to seek advice from the Deputy Speaker. I understand that I was one of the few people in the room when the ballot was drawn. Mr Deputy Speaker and I must be a lucky charm for that, so if my hon. Friend is looking for advice for his lottery numbers—

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Being in the room has absolutely nothing to do with how the ballot is drawn. I put that on the record before anyone thinks that that is the way forward. Let us stick to the debate in hand, rather than the comments from various parts of the Chamber.