Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what recent estimate his Department has made of the total number of (a) paid and (b) unpaid internships in the UK.

The Government has not made an estimate of the number of interns in the UK since 2010. The estimate produced in 2010 was based on evidence from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), combined with a number of other assumptions and should be treated as indicative only.

If an intern is classified as a “worker”, they are entitled to at least the National Minimum Wage from day one of their employment.