Question to the Department for International Development:

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, how many unpaid internships there are in her Department.

DFID has no unpaid internships. The Civil Service has been running the Summer Diversity Internship Programme (SDIP) for 15 years. This is a paid, two months programme specifically for BAME, lower socio-economic and those from disabled backgrounds. It is targeted at penultimate/final year undergraduates and is a major plank of the Civil Service early talent diversity strategy. DFID has participated in this scheme for the last 3 years. In 2016 we took 4 summer diversity internships, 2 in 2015 and 4 in 2014.