National Minimum Wage (Workplace Internships) Bill

Debate between Peter Heaton-Jones and Henry Smith

Friday 4th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Peter Heaton-Jones]

My hon. Friend makes a good point and I will seek to address it later in my remarks.

On social mobility, unpaid internships can be extraordinarily expensive for many of those wishing to go into the professional services, which are often located in the bigger cities and, in many cases, far away from rural constituencies such as mine. If young people in North Devon wish to undertake an internship in one of the larger cities, that will mean paying travel expenses and finding accommodation. For many—this goes to the heart of the point that my hon. Friend has just made—that is simply prohibitive. I do understand that that is a problem. If internships are accessible only to those with financial means, we will entrench a system where the professions are disproportionately dominated by those from families with higher incomes.

[Henry Smith]

As my hon. Friend has said, internships are often available only in large cities, with London being the predominant area. Does he agree that that places even more responsibility on large employers, which have the resources properly to support interns and those seeking work experience with them, to pay high costs such as those for accommodation and travel?

[Peter Heaton-Jones]

That is a good argument, but the difficulty is that I am not sure that the Bill addresses it. That is my problem and my challenge to my hon. Friend the Member for Elmet and Rothwell. My hon. Friend the Member for Crawley (Henry Smith) makes a good point and I will address later the internships offered by the small and medium-sized enterprises that dominate my constituency and many others.

I applaud those employers that do provide funding for internships—there are some—whether it be in the form of pay or expenses. Many charitable bodies, trade associations and universities provide bursaries or similar so that those of limited means can access internships. All these schemes are essential in ensuring that, no matter their background and financial means, people who work hard and are dedicated will achieve their goals. The schemes open the door to the opportunity of an internship.

There is of course always more that can be done. I am glad that this Government are working to promote high-quality paid internships through improving codes of practice, creating awareness campaigns and, importantly, sponsoring the graduate talent pool. These will all make internship opportunities available to those from poorer backgrounds. We must remember—this goes to the heart of our discussion—that an even greater block to accessing internships for many people is a lack of contacts. Put simply, they do not know the right people. That is often a greater block than a lack of pay, so it is right that the Government have acted with initiatives such as the graduate talent pool.

As I have already hinted, my difficulty with the Bill is the level of pay that it expects the facilitator of an internship—the employer—to pay. Broadly, as my hon. Friend the Member for Elmet and Rothwell has mentioned, there are two categories in the existing national minimum wage legislation: workers and apprentices. Workers provide a trade or service in return for remuneration and have an obligation to provide this work—I must sound as though I was an hon. and learned Member, which I assuredly am not—while apprentices receive a lower rate of pay, because although to a degree they provide the same services as workers, they receive on-the-job training. Consequently, the pay level for apprentices recognises that the employer invests time and resources in them, and they do not have to be paid as workers. In my view, interns are closer to the category of an apprentice, rather than that of a worker.

Internships provide individuals with experience and training, which helps them to deliver and gain employment. The Bill states that

“the intern meets learning objectives or gains experience of working for the employer”,

and that the internship provides

“practical experience in an occupation or profession.”

In my view, that is largely what an apprenticeship achieves. Workers, who receive the national minimum wage, do not set out to meet learning objectives or gain experience of working for the employer. That is almost ancillary to their role, which is to provide a service in return for their remuneration. Interns do not provide for the employer the same value as a worker, if I may put it that way, so their pay should not be the same. If I may say so to my hon. Friend, that is one of the flaws in his proposed Bill.