Unpaid Internships

Debate between Nic Dakin and Hazel Blears

Tuesday 18th June 2013 Westminster Hall

[Hazel Blears]

I could not agree more. That is one of the issues that goes to the heart of the matter. Is a company employing somebody who should be doing a job with set hours, set responsibilities and set tasks? If so, that person is a worker, and entitled to the national minimum wage under the law. Someone who is a volunteer is to a great extent entitled to come and go as they please. They give their labour because they believe in a cause. They may get excellent work experience, and many voluntary sector organisations do the right thing. We need a bit more clarity—and this is something I want to ask the Minister about—on the distinction between a worker and a volunteer. However, companies, and some voluntary organisations, although not the majority, have designed an unsustainable business model. The situation is the same as with the national minimum wage: people had a business model that depended on paying people £1 or £1.50 to do a job. A business that cannot run without exploiting people is not being run in the right way. People need to change the model they work on. If good companies can do it and make a profit, everyone else should take up that challenge.

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on securing the debate, which has been excellent so far, and will, I am sure, continue to be so. Access is the key. Whereas internships may be a barrier to access, work experience and the provision of work placements encourage it. We need to make that distinction.

[Hazel Blears]

Absolutely. I have been trying to think hard about the distinction, because I am an advocate of work experience. There are many people in my constituency who perhaps have not worked since leaving school. Perhaps their parents did not work, and in some cases their grandparents did not. They know nothing about the world of work, so work experience, for which they must get up and have discipline, behave themselves and work in a grown-up fashion, is essential to their personal progress. The issue is when a work experience placement becomes a long-term job. That is the point at which exploitation begins.

In France, after someone has worked in a position for eight weeks, they automatically become entitled to the national minimum wage. We could consider such a period. We need to get the distinction right. In my constituency I run something called Kids without Connections. Fifty local employers give four weeks’ work experience to youngsters who have never done any work. They get a record of achievement and a reference. They all come to Parliament. It is the first time they have ever been to London. We make a difference to some of those young people. Half of them have been taken on in full-time jobs. That would never have happened without a work experience placement, so that employers could see what they could do. I am a total fan of work experience, but in some cases it crosses the line and becomes exploitation, through clever titling of an unpaid internship.