Unpaid Internships

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Tuesday 18th June 2013 Westminster Hall

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

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Caton. I begin by thanking Mr Speaker, not only for allocating the time for the debate, but for his personal commitment to this whole agenda, which I will discuss later in my speech and for which I am very grateful; it has made a huge difference. I am also very grateful to colleagues from all political parties for coming along this morning. We have a good turnout, which indicates that the issue engages all parties and is very much a cross-party matter of concern. I have been grateful for support from Members of all parties, as I have tried to get consensus on this issue, so that we can move towards change; that support has been very valuable indeed.

Today I am speaking on a topic that I am really passionate about: the scandal—scandal is a strong word to use, but it is a scandal—of long-term unpaid internships. Nobody in this House would disagree that internships can be a valuable way for young people to get their foot on the career ladder, be it in the world of politics, journalism, public relations, the law, or fashion, or in any other kind of occupation. That is more important than ever, given the current economic climate, and given that more than 1 million young people are unemployed. We are not just talking about people who may have had a difficult upbringing and struggled at school; university graduates and even postgraduates are really struggling to find work.

Internships offer a chance for a young person to demonstrate to an employer their ability and suitability over a set period, usually at least three months. Young people apply for an internship hoping that—if they do well and like the company, and the company likes them—there could be a permanent job for them at the end of the period. However, my big problem with many of the internships currently on offer is that they are unpaid.

Recently I have seen figures that estimate that 92% of arts internships and 76% of internships in the public relations industry are unpaid. Some might say that is perfectly reasonable, given that there are no guarantees that the intern will be suitable for the role in the long term. However, the big problem is that the overwhelming majority of these roles are in London, which is the most expensive city in the country for people to live in. The London Evening Standard recently found that the average rent in London was poised to break the £1,000-a-month barrier, so three months working for free could cost an intern more than £3,000, just for accommodation, and that is without other living costs such as food and transport. Very few young people will have that kind of money saved up to enable them just to get by while they are doing an unpaid internship. Only those who already live with family in London or can call on the bank of mum and dad will be able to take up unpaid internships; that discriminates against a huge proportion of young people on the basis of geography and wealth.

Take someone from a less well-off household anywhere outside London who may have worked hard and scraped the money together, through loans, to get a degree. They have real talent to offer and they are more than capable of doing an internship in the industry that interests them—say, fashion—but how on earth can they possibly afford to work for free in our capital city? I spoke to one young woman recently who had an internship—I think it was with Karl Lagerfeld—and she worked for 12 hours a day, sewing sequins on couture gowns that retailed for £5,000. I asked her what her terms and conditions were. She did not receive a penny in payment. She said, “We very often get pizza and occasionally we get shouted at,” so it was not a very good environment at all.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank my right hon. Friend for championing this important issue. I take on board her points about young people from outside London, but does she not agree that even in constituencies such as mine, which is close to Westminster, many young people need to contribute to the family household income, and unpaid working is a real problem? Sometimes even they cannot do it.

[Hazel Blears]

My hon. Friend makes an extremely good point, and she has been a champion for the social mobility agenda for many years. The principle of working for free is wrong, irrespective of the circumstances, in London or outside London. I will just qualify that by saying that short-term work experience placements are perfectly suitable. However, long-term unpaid internships, wherever the intern lives, are wrong.

--- Later in debate ---

[Hazel Blears]

I was going to say that I love clever lawyers’ suggestions; nevertheless, I love clever suggestions. If people advertising were complicit in an unlawful activity, perhaps we could look at aiding and abetting and being accessories; all those things are now going through my mind. I do not think that we are necessarily in that territory. I am grateful to Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs for taking this issue more seriously, at the instigation of the Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson), who has pressed HMRC to fast-track enforcement; I will come on to that later in my speech. More can be done, but the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley, makes an intriguing suggestion, and I am pleased that we have it on the record in Hansard that it might be worth considering.

[Meg Hillier]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that we have to guard against one important thing? If we move the threshold for people applying for positions that we hope would be paid or supported through a particular scheme, we could make it more difficult for children and young people from difficult backgrounds to reach the threshold, passing the interviews. We have to make sure that moving the entry point does not exclude some people from certain backgrounds.

[Hazel Blears]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. Social mobility is about young people’s journey all the way through, from primary school to secondary school, to further and higher education and to their first interview and their first job. It is sometimes difficult for people to pass on the first occasion, in front of an employer, if they do not have the social skills to be able to impress people. Sometimes in our education system, we might do well on academic qualifications, but increasingly the evidence is that people with soft skills—team building and relationship building—impress employers most and end up getting the job. My hon. Friend makes an important point. That is why we need more mentors, role models and support, all the way through that journey, to ensure that the cleverest and brightest of whatever background can come through.

--- Later in debate ---

[Hazel Blears]

The hon. Gentleman, who has extensive experience of business, makes a good point. Let me use an example I was going to use later. I have recently discovered that Universal Music UK now pays all its interns above the minimum wage and in line with the London living wage. Morna Cook, its director of human resources, has said:

“We pay everyone who joins us above the national minimum wage and in line with the London Living wage. It’s only fair that they are paid for the work they do. Most importantly it also means that anyone can apply, not just those who live in London or can afford to work for free—we’re a diverse business and it’s important that’s reflected in the people who work for us.”

Universal Music UK is a fantastic leader in the field, and it is doing the right thing.

I recently saw a piece by Julie Walters, the famous actress. She said she was increasingly worried that working-class people could not come through the acting profession because of the culture of unpaid internships and that middle-class people had to adopt working-class accents to play working-class parts in the theatre. Goodness me, what state are we in if that is happening? If we cast our minds back 50 years, we could not find black actors, and people had to pretend to be black to take up some roles. We are in the same place with people from working-class communities.

In fashion, Stella McCartney is now paying her interns. Again, she is a great leader. If we have people in the creative industries saying, “I used to have unpaid interns, but now I’ve seen the light, and I know the right thing to do,” they can act as real role models for change.

[Meg Hillier]

On the point about fashion, I have been working with the fashion industry in Shoreditch, which is a large fashion hub. A lot of work is being done to create proper, paid apprenticeships so that people are grown into the jobs. I completely agree with the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mark Field) that there are still real challenges, but there is a move in the right direction, and we should recognise that, on the grounds that we should applaud the good as well as condemn the bad.

[Hazel Blears]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making that point. Fashion, like journalism, is beginning to change. Martin Bright, who runs an organisation called New Deal of the Mind, has been a real leader in getting more apprentices and young people employed on proper terms and conditions in the whole range of creative industries. He has done a fantastic job in making that happen.