Unpaid Work Experience (Prohibition) Bill [HL]

Lord Mitchell Excerpts

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

[Lord Mitchell (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, it is of course far fetched to refer to unpaid interns as slaves. They are not owned by anyone, they are tied to no master and they do what they do through personal choice—and they can quit whenever they choose. But in one respect unpaid interns have a comparison with modern slavery: they receive no payment for their labours. It is a practice that is immoral and needs to be stopped—and it is our duty to stop it. That is why, just like other noble Lords, I am immensely grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Holmes of Richmond, for securing this Second Reading. I wish him godspeed in progressing this Bill through Parliament. I also congratulate him on his magnificent speech.

My interests, which I declare, are pretty pertinent to this debate. I speak with some experience. I chair a graduate recruitment company called Instant Impact Ltd. Previously it had been called Instant Impact Interns, because in the early days back in 2011 most of our business came from placing interns with employers. I stress that every intern we placed was paid at the very least the minimum wage. Like many other start-up companies with limited cash, it would have suited our restricted cash flow very well if we could have employed in-house interns without payment—but that of course was never entertained. With two young founders who themselves were scarcely out of university, it went absolutely against the grain of everything the company stood for. I say this because yesterday I had lunch with somebody who invests in start-up companies that, to my absolute horror, employ graduates—even MBAs—who receive no payment as interns. When I expressed my shock, which he saw, he said, “Well, if we had to pay them we’d go out of business”. My answer was, “Then go out of business”.

Regretfully, I say that many of these start-up companies—not just commercial companies but charities and other organisations—do not take this approach. To our shame, even in your Lordships’ House and in the other place there have been unpaid interns—a fact that is to be deplored. Many fashion houses, art galleries, publishing houses and advertising agencies do the same. Why do they do it? Because they can. Young people clamour to work in sexy, exciting companies. Even those that, if not exactly sexy, have great prestige, such as your Lordships’ House, are able to take advantage of that. Several years ago, at a glitzy dinner for the super-rich, an internship with a major fashion magazine was auctioned for tens of thousands of pounds. I know that to be true because I was there. I was horrified.

The reason why graduates are prepared to work for nothing is obvious: such are the demands for a well-crafted CV that anyone who can will work for nothing. For most normal families who have underwritten their children through university, it becomes an intolerable extra burden to pay even more to support their child through one or more internships. As has already been mentioned, if the job is away from home and in a big city, the costs can be enormous.

Unpaid internships are hugely divisive. It is simply not fair that the quality of a CV is so stacked against those whose parents cannot pick up the phone and get them an internship. It is equally unfair that underpaid internships are taken by those who are already privileged. If we as a nation are trying to encourage young people from less well-off backgrounds to compete with those who are more privileged, then ensuring that interns receive a living wage will go some way to redressing this divide.

I must caution the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, because I can anticipate what the Minister will say by way of reply. I make this prediction because several years ago, as has been mentioned, I raised this issue in your Lordships’ House and received an unsatisfactory reply. The Minister said that legislation was already on the statute book to ensure that interns who worked for more than four weeks would get paid at least the minimum wage, so no further legislative action was required. I urge the noble Lord not to accept this answer, because the facts on the ground do not substantiate this claim. According to the Social Mobility Commission, there are 70,000 interns in the UK, up to half of whom are working unpaid—35,000 unpaid interns. It is quite clear that current legislation has not prevented this unsavoury practice. Therefore, my question to the Minister is: how many examples have there been of an employer being successfully prosecuted for avoiding paying an intern? This Bill will not solve the problem, but it will go some way towards creating equal opportunity in the workplace and it deserves all our support.