BAE Systems Military Air & Information Sites: Job Losses

Victoria Atkins Excerpts

Tuesday 10th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Claire Perry]

I commend the hon. Gentleman, and the people he represents in Barrow, for flying the flag and doing such an amazing job for such a vital British industry. He knows better than anyone else the importance of maintaining those skills. At this point, I think we will all put our shoulders to the wheel and do whatever we can to fly the flag for British exports. I would be delighted to work cross-party to do just that.

[Victoria Atkins (Louth and Horncastle) (Con)]

BAE Systems is a vital employer in my constituency. It maintains the Typhoon jets that fly from RAF Coningsby and many of my constituents commute to Brough in Humberside, where BAE Systems provides highly skilled careers and apprenticeships. Sadly, we have heard today that Brough is to lose 400 jobs. In that spirit, I very much hope the Government will work with BAE Systems to ensure opportunities for employees and apprentices at Brough. Can my hon. Friend confirm that the commitment to spend 2% of our budget on defence will continue, and that the Government will continue to support this great British company?

[Claire Perry]

We will of course spend at least 2% of our national income on the defence budget. We will do all we can by working with the company and other players, in particular through the talent retention system. One crucial point, in response to the hon. Member for Llanelli (Nia Griffith), is that we cannot lose these skills from the British workforce. They are vital and they have been acquired over many years. We have to ensure that they are maintained and that the productivity they generate is developed.

Oral Answers to Questions

Victoria Atkins Excerpts

Tuesday 27th June 2017 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Margot James)]

The hon. Lady is right to draw attention to workers who are misled and workers who believe erroneously that they have fewer rights than they do. We are absolutely committed that any individual, whatever contract they are on, is entitled to their rights. We have increased the powers open to Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs to enforce those rights.

[Victoria Atkins (Louth and Horncastle) (Con)]

T9. Market towns are vital to the rural economy, and they are the heart of rural communities, drawing people together across the 531 square miles of my constituency. Modern shopping habits, however, can mean that it is difficult for businesses in market towns to survive. What are the Government doing to support our much-needed and much-loved market towns?

[Margot James]

Market towns, such as the ones in my hon. Friend’s constituency, will have all the support we are giving to the retail sector and high streets so that they can flourish.

Corporate Governance

Victoria Atkins Excerpts

1st reading: House of Commons
Tuesday 29th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I observe in passing that there is an undiluted sea of men seeking to catch the eye of the Chair. If a female Member were to stand, she would be called, but at the moment she is not, so she will not.

[Victoria Atkins (Louth and Horncastle) (Con)]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

If that was a serious bid, I call Victoria Atkins.

[Hon. Members]

Hear, hear!

[Victoria Atkins]

I welcome this statement. Will my right hon. Friend assist the House by saying how the plans tie in with the need to ensure that business owners comply with not only the letter of the law, but the spirit? I am thinking in particular of the Companies Act 2006 and corporate governance failures that have led to prosecutions—something that may be relevant when the hon. Member for Norwich South (Clive Lewis) talks about BHS.

[Mr Speaker]

She is not a barrister for nothing.

National Minimum Wage (Workplace Internships) Bill

Victoria Atkins Excerpts

Friday 4th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins (Louth and Horncastle) (Con)]

It seems appropriate that in a debate about working practices I should be multi-tasking, speaking as I am from the Parliamentary Private Secretary’s Bench. I ask that the aides to the Minister resist the temptation to send any notes to the Minister while I am on my feet.

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Gill Furniss), but it is a particular pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies), whose reputation for scrutinising Bills on a Friday precedes him, as does the reputation of my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall). My hon. Friend the Member for Shipley made several references in his speech to my legal and familial antecedents, and as he was speaking I was reminded of the comment from my hon. Friend the Member for Elmet and Rothwell (Alec Shelbrooke) about the need to be thick-skinned on these Benches.

The comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley contributed to the debate to this extent: my experience of seeing my father work in this place meant that I understood how much good can be done here. Is that not the point of internships and work experience? It is about opening minds and giving young people and older people the chance to see work environments and job opportunities of which they may have no personal experience, and to see the opportunities available to them.

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Elmet and Rothwell for bringing this debate and for bringing to life an area of law—employment law—which can be pretty dry at times. In his speech my hon. Friend has shown the real impact that it can have on people’s lives when they are trying to start out on their career. His speech and his Bill show just how important that is. For us to create a society that works for everyone, we must ensure that access to fulfilling or well-paid careers is not limited to the privileged few. Talent and hard work, not where one went to school or the size of one’s parents’ bank account, should determine one’s success.

I part from my hon. Friend, however, on the means by which we achieve this aim. The provision to pay interns already exists in legislation. Guidance, combined with steps to encourage employers to adopt best practice in their workplaces, is the best way to tackle the issue. I am pleased that it has been raised in the House, as work experience and properly constituted internships are an invaluable way of helping young people decide which career path they would like to take.

In September I held the first Louth and Horncastle jobs and apprenticeships fair. There are many successful local businesses in my constituency and many talented people looking for work, as well as students who are at the beginning of their careers and would like ideas about what they should do for the rest of their lives. I wanted to bring them all together. I am happy to say that at the jobs fair more than 200 people attended, with both local and national businesses showing at the fair, including Luxus, Polypipe, BAE Systems, Butlins, National Grid and Walnut Care. We had pretty much every opportunity one can think of covered by the employers on hand.

I hope that work experience and internships may help some of my constituents start fulfilling careers. Later this afternoon I am welcoming students from Somercotes Academy, who have come to this place to see democracy and debate in action for themselves.

Work experience can be an invaluable learning experience and allow young people to meet potential employers and colleagues, and it can even help someone realise that a particular career is not for them. I remember a couple of days of work experience I did, although I will not name the profession for fear of offending many people in my constituency. I walked into the office and realised within moments that this was not the career for me—I suspect the profession involved dodged a bullet when I made that decision. Internships can be just as valuable in showing people where their paths do not lie as where they do.

I concur with my hon. Friend’s laudable aim to ensure fair access to the opportunities created by work experience and internships. We must do all we can to ensure these opportunities are made available to talented young people from all backgrounds, because this is not just about the fundamental unfairness of refusing to pay someone for the work they have done; it is also about the impact on social mobility. Those from wealthy backgrounds have far greater resources on which to draw, in terms not just of income but of contacts.

My hon. Friend spoke at length about the experiences of students in the fashion world and the art world, and those anecdotes showed clearly the troubles we face. He also said that 40% of internships were turned down by people who felt that they could not do them. As he said, that cannot be the right way to go with this issue.

Another important point is that ensuring there is equal access to these opportunities makes good business sense; it widens the pool of talent to which businesses have access, making it far more likely that they will employ the best person for their organisation.

Now I turn to where I part company from my hon. Friend. The Bill states:

“An intern who enters into a workplace internship shall be remunerated by his employer in respect of his work at a rate which is not less than the national minimum wage”.

Under the National Minimum Wage Act 1998, interns who are genuine volunteers, who are under no under obligation to perform work or provide services, will not fall within the definition of worker and will not be eligible for the national minimum wage. However, if an organisation treats an intern as though he were worker, a contractual relationship may arise, and the person is then entitled to be paid the national minimum wage. Consequently, provision to pay interns already exists.

[Mr Nuttall]

Given my hon. Friend’s profession, is she aware of the case of Edmonds v. Lawson in 1999? Miss Edmonds was a pupil barrister, and she successfully claimed that, while she was on her pupillage, she was actually held to be on an apprenticeship. She sought a declaration from the Queen’s bench division of the High Court that she was a worker under a contract of apprenticeship.

[Victoria Atkins]

Indeed, as I mentioned, when I did my pupillage, which was just before that case was decided, pupillages did not have to be paid, so I spent the first six months of my pupillage not being paid while I was very clearly working. Happily, as I said, the Bar—I remind my hon. Friend that it is constituted of self-employed people, not companies—has now made it mandatory for pupillages to be funded. I forget the level at which they are funded, but it is well above the national minimum wage.

[Bob Stewart]

Has the fact that it is a requirement that people be paid led to a reduction in pupillages?

[Victoria Atkins]

Certainly it did for the years following the introduction of payments for pupillages. However, it was felt that, in the longer term, the pupillages would be of a higher quality, because a chambers would be very much focusing on making sure it got the right calibre and quality of candidate to suit its business, rather than being a bit of a factory of pupillages and encouraging people who, sadly, did not then later find better, long-term employment.

I am glad that this debate has been brought to the House, as it is important to raise awareness of when an intern is due the national minimum wage so that the 1998 Act is followed. In our current legislation, the term “intern” is not defined explicitly, and it can be ambiguous as to whether a person performing an internship also falls under the definition of “worker”. Work experience can be called a placement or an internship, and volunteering schemes that do not involve working activities are also often referred to as internships. As this is a complicated area where the line between what should be an unpaid internship and a contractual working relationship is often blurred, and can indeed be crossed without either party meaning to do so, it is most effective for the Government to offer guidance to assist employers to adopt best practice.

The Minister may well take away from this debate the point made by my hon. Friends the Members for Elmet and Rothwell and for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg) about the maximum of 28 days in any calendar year. That would be a good starting place for working out whether a person is an intern or somebody on work experience, or whether they have entered into a more contractual relationship with the person offering the experience.

It is vital that employers as well as employees are aware of the statutory provisions that are available, because some of these roles do not require the minimum wage to be paid. There is no doubt, however, that there are situations where what is referred to as an internship describes work activities, and those participating in the scheme should be paid. I applaud my hon. Friend the Member for Elmet and Rothwell for drawing attention to that ambiguity.

While I welcome the information provided by the Government through their website, gov.uk, and ACAS, I urge them to continue to review the effectiveness of the guidance they are offering in this area. I encourage all businesses to make provision to allow young people of all socioeconomic backgrounds such opportunities.

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right that internships and work experience can give opportunities to young people. Many charities and small businesses could not necessarily afford to pay for internships. It is therefore important to have greater clarity on what is appropriate, and I congratulate her on asking the Government to keep this matter under review.

[Victoria Atkins]

I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend. I also welcome the work done by the Government to promote fair and open access to paid internships through the graduate talent pool, the social mobility business compact, and the common best practice code for high-quality internships, which ask employers to ensure that any internships they offer are paid fairly.

Alongside offering guidance, we must continue to crack down on employers who are not treating employees fairly. I welcome the fact that this year the Government have increased HMRC’s enforcement budget by £7 million, improving its ability to crack down on employers who exploit interns and fail to pay staff properly. I declare an interest in that I used to prosecute criminals for HMRC. I wish it well in its endeavours. Employers who pay workers less than the minimum wage not only have to pay back arrears of wages at current minimum wage rates, but face financial penalties of up to £20,000 per worker. I hope that the message leaves this Chamber today that it is not worth employers trying to get round the rules, and that they must treat their employees and interns fairly.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

My hon. Friend is summing up very well a lot of what has been said. She was in the Chamber when I spoke and will have heard my comments about the model contract from the Institute of Directors, and the voluntary internships with Vivienne Westwood being advertised from 1 January 2017 based on those hours. Does my hon. Friend agree that something has to be done to tidy up this area so that all these things sit properly within the law?

[Victoria Atkins]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. I know that the Minister has been listening very carefully to this debate and I have no doubt that she will take away the points that you have made. If nothing else—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. I hesitate to interrupt the hon. Lady, but she must not use the word “you”. If she uses the word “you”, she is referring to the Chair and its occupant, and I am the only person here in this Chamber this afternoon who has not made any points whatsoever. I know that that is not what she meant—she meant the hon. Gentleman—and I am quite sure that she can rephrase what she has just said.

[Victoria Atkins]

I am extremely grateful to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I apologise for any discourtesy; none was intended.

I agree very much with my hon. Friend the Member for Elmet and Rothwell, and I would imagine that any business would be embarrassed to hear itself being spoken about in the way that that company has been spoken about in this debate. We know that the matter has reached the national media and I hope that they will also take notice of what has been said today in the Chamber.

In conclusion, internships and work experience should help young people to build their careers on merit and hard work, regardless of their background, and while I do not believe that this Bill is the most effective way to achieve that I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for his long-standing campaign to speak up for social mobility and for young people, not only in his constituency but across the country. I thank him for bringing this Bill to the House.