Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment has been made of the potential impact of unpaid internships, informal recruitment, and London-based hiring practices on working-class inclusion in the culture and media sectors.

A creative career should never be the preserve of a privileged few. However, we know that informal working and recruitment practices, and the concentration of creative jobs in London, can act as barriers to the inclusion of people who come from working-class backgrounds.

Making creative careers accessible for everyone is a key priority for the Government. That is why in our Creative Industries Sector Plan we committed to a refreshed UK-wide £9 million creative careers service. We are working closely with industry partners to design next year’s expanded programme, with a particular focus on priority areas where children and young people face the greatest barriers to accessing creative opportunities. Building on this we announced in November that we have invested £500,000 to expand Creative Futures, delivered through The King’s Trust. The programme is designed to break down barriers to jobs in the creative industries for young people across the country who are not in education, employment or training (NEET), or at risk of being so – particularly those facing significant barriers and currently underrepresented in the creative industries.

We are also working across the economy to address the issue of unpaid internships, as part of the Plan to Make Work Pay. Unpaid internships, which are not part of a formal educational or training course, are already largely banned. The law is clear: if someone is a worker, calling them an unpaid intern does not mean they are not entitled to pay. The commitment to ban unpaid internships reflects our vision for a fair and inclusive labour market where everyone has the opportunity to succeed based on their talent and not their financial circumstances. The recent call for evidence on unpaid internships is the first step in tackling this issue.