Unpaid Internships Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
Lord McNicol of West Kilbride
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Unpaid Internships
Lord McNicol of West Kilbride Excerpts(5 years, 7 months ago)
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Lord Henley
The noble Baroness is right to draw attention to the creative industries as an area where unpaid internships are particularly prevalent. My honourable friend Kelly Tolhurst and colleagues in the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport will hold a round-table meeting shortly with representatives of employers in the creative sectors. This meeting will be used to underline our policy on eliminating unpaid internships to sector leaders and to encourage them to take practical measures to stop their use in this sector.
Lord McNicol of West Kilbride (Lab)
My Lords, on this side of the House our preference would be a ban on the use of illegal unpaid internships. The 2017 Taylor review said:
“The Government should ensure that exploitative unpaid internships, which damage social mobility in the UK, are stamped out”.
I will try a different tack. If the Government are not going to ban them completely, will they undertake an analysis of the social class and background of those who get internships? I am sure it will further highlight the inequality which leads to those who have both the opportunity, as well as the means, being able to work for nothing.