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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, pursuant to the oral contribution of the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy of 7 February 2018, on the Taylor Review, Official Report, Column 1502, what steps his Department is planning to take to ensure that unpaid interns are not doing the job of a worker.

The law is clear that interns must be paid at least minimum wage rates if they are doing the job of a worker.

HMRC will make unpaid interns a priority for their targeted, intelligence led enforcement of the National Minimum Wage. This will build upon the work conducted to target sectors and employers advertising unpaid internships online. Since November HMRC investigators have issued more than 550 warning letters to employers advertising for unpaid interns through job websites.

Additionally, the Government will publish further guidance for employers to make it absolutely clear when they must pay minimum wage rates to interns.