National Minimum Wage (Workplace Internships) Bill

Victoria Atkins Excerpts

Friday 4th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Alec Shelbrooke]

If my hon. Friend bears with me one moment, I will come to him. I just want to build on this important point about representation in this place. All of us in this Chamber forget that we are very thick-skinned people. We have to be, given the nature of the job. We take abuse from many directions, all the time.

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

Sometimes from our own Back Benchers.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

Indeed. We have to stand up for our convictions and put our case, as I hope I am doing today. Many people in this country do not have the ability to do that, and that is why representation is important. As MPs, we should stand up for people. We can argue in this Chamber about the value of a Bill, but it is important to introduce this kind of Bill and to look at how we can change the law, because many people out there simply cannot find the courage to stand up and do so. That is why we have trade unions and Members of Parliament.

--- Later in debate ---

[Victoria Atkins]

I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way, and for holding this debate. I had to do a six-month pupillage that was completely unpaid, as were travel and other costs. I was able, through part-time work and the help of my parents, to withstand that. Does he accept that the Bar has tried to mend its ways? It now funds the first six months of pupillages, in the hope of attracting people from a whole range of backgrounds, and not just those who can afford it.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

I am most grateful for that intervention, because it shows that these practices are slowly being addressed. In this debate, and through further legislation, I am seeking to accelerate that process. My hon. Friend makes a very important point: people want to address the fact that perhaps the talent pool is being restricted to those with financial means, because they want to pick from the largest pool.

In an updated report two years ago, Mr Milburn said that if nothing improved for interns, the Government should act to ban unpaid internships. From what I can see, there has been very little improvement. It is therefore my sincere hope that the Social Mobility Commission’s soon-to-be published “State of the Nation” report will formally support this Bill and urge a ban of long-term unpaid internships in the United Kingdom. As my wife put it to me when we were discussing this Bill, it is ridiculous that for those who do not take an academic route through education and instead opt for an apprenticeship there is provision within legislation requiring payment of a national minimum, yet for those who choose higher education we offer no such legislated assistance when they undertake an internship.

The Prime Minister said in her recent conference speech that we must start believing in “the good that Government can do”. A Government should act to

“tackle the unfairness and injustice that divides us”.

A Government should step up, right wrongs, challenge vested interests, take big decisions and do what it believes to be right,

“because that’s the good that government can do . . .To stand up for the weak and stand up to the strong… and to put the power of government squarely at the service”

of ordinary working people.

To re-emphasise exactly why unpaid internships are locking those with abilities out of the jobs market, I would like to share with the House a job advert that was recently shown to me. The advertisement offered a £45,000 base salary, plus bonuses, for a graduate trainee trader/asset manager. It sought only those who had a first-class degree from a Russell Group university with A grades, including A-level maths. So the application process appears to be open to anyone academically able, until one gets to the line that states “we would expect you to have a minimum of 6 months internship within a front or middle office role.”

Once again, a fantastic career opportunity for someone who demonstrates clear academic ability is limited by the affluence of their parents. This highlights a disparity of values in society today. We want our children to believe that their opportunities are endless as long as they have the ability and aspiration to reach them, yet the arms of the state are not acting successfully enough to ensure that this can happen.

I have often said that I want the children of today to feel that their future opportunities are a bit like going on “The X Factor”. I do not know how many of those here are fans, but I am a big fan. As we hear when we visit schools, most children recognise that people can go along for an audition for “The X Factor” and, if they are good enough, they progress to the next stage. They may then progress to boot camp, then the six-chair challenge, then judges’ houses, then the live shows until eventually the public elect a winner. In a nutshell, if they have the raw talent and ability they can go all the way, regardless of personal wealth or background. An unpaid internship is a bit like young people getting all the way through to the live shows, having proven their talent, only to be told that to reach the final they have to pay a large amount of money to proceed. With no income, they are expected to pay rent, travel and living costs to remain in the contest.

It is not just the professions that I referred to earlier that exploit the labour of young people with unpaid internships. As reported in The Mail of Sunday last weekend, a high-profile left-wing political activist in the fashion industry seems to advertise for unpaid staff on terms that can only be described as utter hypocrisy. While researching for this Bill I came across live advertisements for volunteer internships with Vivienne Westwood. I stress that those are volunteer internships being advertised. That answers the point that my hon. Friends made earlier about whether there is a difference between advertising an internship and people offering their services as volunteers. With an advertisement for a volunteer internship, we are getting into murky water.

The adverts explicitly state that “The roles will be for approximately 5 days a week, Monday to Friday, although as this is a voluntary position we are looking for a candidate with a can-do/proactive attitude to work”. It seems that Ms Westwood has not learned the lessons of previous media exposures. Despite a previous exposé of a similar scandal by The Mail of Sunday in 2011, it appears that this fashion house has carried on exploiting young people by taking on more unpaid internships. What makes this all the more unbelievable is that these adverts for unpaid staff are from the very same multimillionaire fashionista whom we have recently seen cosying up with the Leader of the Opposition, tramping around the streets of north London protesting against inequality. Ms Westwood also gave a keynote speech to the junior doctors’ strike, which makes me wonder what planet someone is living on when they protest that a 13.5% pay rise for junior doctors is not good enough, while blatantly refusing to pay her staff a wage.

Although it is my intention to highlight the sheer hypocrisy of these individuals, it is not my intention to degrade the wider workforce at Vivienne Westwood. It is not their fault that they work for an unscrupulous employer. Indeed, feedback from individuals who have undertaken unpaid internships at Vivienne Westwood describe positive experiences—for example, “Staff are amazing people”, “Great working environment”, “It is a great place to work.” But perhaps most notable is the very British way in which one former intern offered polite advice to the management. She said: “The interns at Vivienne Westwood work really hard and would greatly appreciate it if you paid them and maybe gave them a little more credit for how much work they do and how hard they try.”

This is 2016, yet in Britain today a young person has to ask their employer to consider paying them for the hours that they have worked. It is a scandal. It is a disgrace. It is a flashback to a Victorian Britain that most of us in the Chamber would not have thought believable. The more we investigate this shoddy workplace practice, the more it feels like the opening of Pandora’s box, and the worst culprits seem to be the high-end business, fashion or entertainment industries.

Following the First Reading of this Bill, a young man wrote to me about his experiences as an unpaid intern in the entertainment industry. He said he felt that taking an unpaid internship was the only way to get his foot in the door of this notoriously difficult industry. The internship was both enjoyable and worthwhile in terms of the contacts that he made during his time there, meeting people he would otherwise not have met, had he not taken it. However, he felt as if these opportunities, which he assumed would be a part of the day-to-day job, were more of a reward for doing repetitive menial tasks.