National Minimum Wage (Workplace Internships) Bill

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 2:04 pm on 4 November 2016.

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Photo of Margot James Margot James Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy) 2:04, 4 November 2016

We have had a good debate, full of insight and good humour and I warmly congratulate my hon. Friend Alec Shelbrooke on all the work he has done examining the issue of unpaid internships and introducing his Bill today. Indeed, so rich was the debate that it is impossible to do justice to all the excellent contributions. My only disappointment was that my hon. Friend Mr Rees-Mogg tantalised with his presence but confined his remarks to a few pertinent points, rather than giving us the benefit of the full panoply of his views on the matter. That was left to my hon. Friends the Members for Shipley (Philip Davies) and for Bury North (Mr Nuttall), who did not disappoint, and neither did my hon. Friends the Members for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins) and for North Devon (Peter Heaton-Jones). We have also heard some very good points from Gill Furniss.

Those of us who have worked with my hon. Friend the Member for Elmet and Rothwell know that he is a tireless campaigner for interns’ rights. He made a personal pledge to act on unpaid internships and this Bill represents only the most recent stage in his impressive campaign to secure fairness of opportunity and equity of consideration for all entrants to the labour market regardless of their personal means or social background.

The principle lying behind and driving my hon. Friend’s efforts is the idea that work can be a powerful engine for social mobility, and the Prime Minister, who talks about her vision of a truly meritocratic Britain and building an economy that works for everybody, is very much of the same mind.

I want to take a little time to talk about the Government review set up by the Prime Minister at the beginning of last month. It will be headed by the chief executive of the Royal Society of Arts, Matthew Taylor, and is to look specifically at developments in modern working practices. I also want to speak about the national minimum wage and the living wage, and a little bit about Government enforcement through the HMRC. I also want to address the provisions set out in the Bill.

First, let me make a few remarks about internships in the broader context and share a few points from my constituency experience. I have changed the names of the people I shall mention. The first of them is Susan. She was educated at a well-known public school. Her father was chairman of a public company and a donor to one of our two major political parties. He effected an introduction to the party chairman which resulted in a six-month unpaid internship for Susan at the party’s headquarters, and from the contacts she made there she was able to secure a second unpaid internship for a Member of Parliament.