argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
National Minimum Wage (Workplace Internships) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-11-04
Topic: Social Welfare
Alec Shelbrooke (Conservative, Centre-right): Quite right—I agree with the hon. Gentleman on the Opposition Front Bench, who speaks from a sedentary position I gently say to my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley that he quite rightly points out that my interest is social mobility, but rather than trying to bring it down to a common denominator I am trying to bring it up to a common denominator, so that people can access opportunities for social mobility. I understand his concerns, but there is a large difference between trying to push everybody down and being under the control of one socialist fist, and trying to make sure that everybody can go as high as they possibly can.
National Minimum Wage (Workplace Internships) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-11-04
Topic: Labor
Jacob William Rees-Mogg (Conservative, Centre-right): Will my hon. Friend examine the figures just given by our hon. Friend the Member for Elmet and Rothwell (Alec Shelbrooke)? He said that 40% of people do not take up internships because they cannot afford to, but 66% of internships are paid. That does not seem quite to work. It must mean that people are refusing to take up paid internships as well as unpaid internships, in which case simply paying people will not solve the problem.
National Minimum Wage (Workplace Internships) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-11-04
Topic: Labor
Philip Andrew Davies (Conservative, Centre-right): Of course my hon. Friend is absolutely right. That is a point that I, too, have considered during this debate, because my hon. Friend the Member for Elmet and Rothwell made a point about how expensive it is to live in London and to take accommodation in London, which is absolutely right. Many opportunities for internships and work experience are in London, so I have to say to him that paying under-18s £4 an hour—the current rate of the minimum wage for under-18s—will not give them the opportunity to come and take up a work experience place in London; they would still have to rely on parental support, other family support, or other means The Bill will not make a blind bit of difference to the people my hon. Friend is targeting. They still will not be able to afford to take up opportunities in London, which will still be the preserve of more affluent people. Again, that is why the Bill will not achieve what he sets out to achieve and why I think I have a better solution My hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) was right: many people doing work experience are already entitled to the national minimum wage. We should make that point clear. I made it earlier in an intervention, but I see a difference between people who are—[Interruption.] I think that my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby (Mark Pawsey) does not agree with me here; he is a bit more hard-core than I am.
National Minimum Wage (Workplace Internships) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-11-04
Topic: Labor
Philip Andrew Davies (Conservative, Centre-right): As a well-known softie, I take a slightly different view. There is a difference between companies and organisations that are actively seeking a member of staff to come in and do some work for them, are advertising for that and in effect are trying to get somebody to do that job for nothing, and other companies. These are personal things, I guess; I think that situation is different I have never advertised for an unpaid intern. I have never said that I want somebody to come and work for me unpaid for x period of time. I do not think that that is right. Whether it should be illegal is a different issue, but I do not think that it is right; it is not to my taste.
National Minimum Wage (Workplace Internships) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-11-04
Topic: Labor
Mark Julian Francis Pawsey (Conservative, Centre-right): I was going to make a distinction. It is known that MPs provide internships, so there would often be no need for my hon. Friend to advertise his own internship. However, if other businesses were minded to take on a young person and provide them with experience in that way, they would need to provide some mechanism to do so, and placing an advertisement would seem to me the obvious thing to do.
National Minimum Wage (Workplace Internships) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-11-04
Topic: Labor
Philip Andrew Davies (Conservative, Centre-right): It was not for me to pinpoint anyone in particular, and I should say for the record that the ones who are in the Chamber are among the ablest and most effective. I would not have wanted to do anything that prevented them from being here. That is not my point. My point is that, in all circumstances, people will use whatever opportunities they have to further their aims and ambitions, and we should not criticise them for that. The notion that if we pass the Bill we will end up with a system that provides equal opportunities for everyone is for the birds. That is just not going to happen. I do not think that my hon. Friend would make many inroads with this measure even if it were successful It is commonplace in business, and in other spheres, for people to secure opportunities such as internships and placements on the basis of who they know rather than what they know. I would like to think that the fact that we in this place are able to offer unpaid internships, work experience or whatever we want to call it to all our constituents if they ask—I certainly would never refuse a constituent, and indeed I try to accommodate as many people as I can who are not constituents—means that everyone, not just people we know, is being given an opportunity. I think that unpaid internships are extending the opportunities to more people, and I do not think that it is simply a question of giving the opportunity to someone we know or to a relative. That is why I think that my hon. Friend is attacking the problem from the wrong end.
National Minimum Wage (Workplace Internships) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-11-04
Topic: Social Welfare
Alec Shelbrooke (Conservative, Centre-right): Following advice on drafting the Bill, clause 1 tries implicitly to make the point that it does not apply to the charity sector, by not listing that sector among the areas that the provisions apply to. We can get into the legal ups and downs, but that is the advice that I was given on exempting the charity sector, to address the specific point that my hon. Friend has just raised.
National Minimum Wage (Workplace Internships) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-11-04
Topic: Labor
Philip Andrew Davies (Conservative, Centre-right): I can understand the point my hon. Friend makes. The Bill makes it clear what a workplace is, but clause 3 deals with exclusions, and there is no mention of the charity sector in that clause. I absolutely understand what he is saying, but I am not sure that it is abundantly clear that that sector is excluded. A stated exclusion would have been helpful to clarify this point once and for all.
National Minimum Wage (Workplace Internships) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-11-04
Topic: Labor
David Nuttall (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend has drawn the attention of the House to the problem of volunteers. We have already established the fact that anyone who is doing work, whether or not they are called an intern, is covered by the national minimum wage legislation. If we are prepared to accept that volunteers will be excluded from the Bill, even though that is not explicitly stated, are we not left with a situation in which the only people who will be covered are the people who are doing nothing and who are simply turning up to watch?
National Minimum Wage (Workplace Internships) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-11-04
Topic: Labor
Philip Andrew Davies (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend is absolutely right The Bill’s attempt to expand opportunities seems to be all stick and no carrot. I have been looking at what happens in other parts of the world. My hon. Friend has touched on some examples of this as well. In a submission from Perspective in 2013 in favour of paid internships, Robina Longworth cited other practices from around the world. However, as far as I can see, none of the countries listed pays the minimum wage to interns. China and Hong Kong, for example, have subsidised internship programmes for university graduates and hiring companies are eligible for tax breaks and loans. Perhaps my hon. Friend the Member for Elmet and Rothwell might like to consider giving tax breaks to companies who take people on. That might be a better carrot to offer.
National Minimum Wage (Workplace Internships) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-11-04
Topic: Labor
Philip Andrew Davies (Conservative, Centre-right): I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. It is inconceivable to me that the Bill would not result in fewer internships being offered. There would undoubtedly be fewer internships and work experience places. Nobody could say that the Bill would result in more such opportunities for people; there would be fewer. My point is that we should encourage businesses to offer more opportunities, particularly for those who do not get a fair crack of the whip. I know that he and I, and many other Members across the House, would like to see that happening, and perhaps tax breaks would be the answer. Rather than telling companies that they had to pay extra for offering these opportunities, perhaps we should consider giving them a financial incentive to do so. That seems to be a much more sensible and conservative way forward. I welcome what my hon. Friend said about national insurance contributions, but perhaps he should also consider tax breaks In Poland, there is financial support for engaging young people on internships. In Korea, there are wage subsidies for small businesses that hire interns on regular contracts. Those subsidies are offered at the conclusion of the internship, so the business is given a carrot to take the person on after they have been given a go to see whether they are good enough. And that is not just about the company seeing whether the intern is good enough; it also offers the intern an opportunity to see whether they want to work in that company or industry. That system appears to work for both sides I have had an idea for another thing that would be far better, and I hope that my hon. Friend will take this on board because I feel strongly about it. I have wondered about extending student loans to young people who do not want to go to university but want the opportunity to do something else. We give student loans to people, and I am sure that my hon. Friend would say from a social mobility point of view that they often go to people who are already affluent. In effect, the state gives them a subsidised loan at a preferential rate to enable them to live while at university and get a degree, which will then in all likelihood lead to them getting a higher-paid job than if they did not have a degree. It could be argued that it is like throwing apples into full orchards and that we are subsidising the people who are best off However, people who do not go to university are often the poorest in the country and they get nothing. They do not get a subsidised loan to pursue their career ambitions. Why not offer something like a student loan to, for example, someone from a poor working-class background in Yorkshire—
National Minimum Wage (Workplace Internships) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-11-04
Topic: Labor
Philip Andrew Davies (Conservative, Centre-right): Certainly not Lancashire That person may want to pursue a career in which they have a great interest, and such a loan, at a preferential rate, could give them the opportunity to come down to London to do the relevant work experience. They could then pay the loan back, just as university graduate does, when they are in a job that pays a certain amount of money. That would extend opportunities to people who currently do not get them. I have never quite understood why the only young people who get subsidised loans from the Government are those who go to university. What about all the other people who want to do something different?
National Minimum Wage (Workplace Internships) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-11-04
Topic: Education
Alec Shelbrooke (Conservative, Centre-right): Specifically on those points, it will not have escaped my hon. Friend’s notice that the Bill contains an exemption for people on accredited degree courses. We were willing to put that in because many accredited degree courses contain a period of internship and—this was my reason—have access to student finance. He makes a valid point about granting that access to other people on the same terms, but—this is where I would blend my Bill in—there is a question about how to sort out the time limits on such a scheme. I am listening carefully to his comments. The Bill probably will not move into Committee, which is a great pity because many important things have been said in this debate that would help to develop it.
National Minimum Wage (Workplace Internships) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-11-04
Topic: Labor
Philip Andrew Davies (Conservative, Centre-right): Certainly not a red rose. A red letter is far better than a red rose any day of the week As for Members of Parliament, an FOI request of IPSA asked about the number of interns and paid interns working for MPs over the past three years. It seems that about one in four MPs took on a paid intern, but I am pretty sure that virtually every MP takes on people to do work experience of some sort or another and that everybody who does so gets something out of it. Given the number of people we take on to give that opportunity to them, if we had to pay them all the minimum wage, that would take up a sizeable part of our budget. It would mean either that we could not afford to take them on or that we would have to give our existing staff a pay cut. Neither of those would be a palatable option, but they would be the only options available to us Strangely, the Bill does not seem to recognise that people have short-term and long-term internships. My hon. Friend the Member for Elmet and Rothwell mentioned that issue, so I will not go into it further as he would wish to look at it. I have spent longer than I expected speaking to the Bill—[Interruption]—because of the number of interventions I have taken. In concluding, I just wish to mention a couple of people who have spent time with me. Before I go into that, I should just say that the Bill will mean we will probably end up with more people on zero-hours contracts. I know that quite a lot of Labour MPs employ people on those contracts, even though they are against them politically. [Interruption.] Does that mean zero-hours contracts are a good thing?
National Minimum Wage (Workplace Internships) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-11-04
Topic: Social Welfare
Alec Shelbrooke (Conservative, Centre-right): I am conscious that my hon. Friend is drawing his remarks to a close, but what I have drawn from his comments is that he agrees with me that there must be a mechanism by which people can do these roles and be able to live, survive and do something. He has come up with interesting suggestions, but I think that he recognises the premise that we reduce social mobility if someone simply cannot afford to take up the post.
National Minimum Wage (Workplace Internships) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-11-04
Topic: Education
Victoria Atkins (Conservative, Centre-right): Indeed, as I mentioned, when I did my pupillage, which was just before that case was decided, pupillages did not have to be paid, so I spent the first six months of my pupillage not being paid while I was very clearly working. Happily, as I said, the Bar—I remind my hon. Friend that it is constituted of self-employed people, not companies—has now made it mandatory for pupillages to be funded. I forget the level at which they are funded, but it is well above the national minimum wage.
National Minimum Wage (Workplace Internships) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-11-04
Topic: Labor
Victoria Atkins (Conservative, Centre-right): Certainly it did for the years following the introduction of payments for pupillages. However, it was felt that, in the longer term, the pupillages would be of a higher quality, because a chambers would be very much focusing on making sure it got the right calibre and quality of candidate to suit its business, rather than being a bit of a factory of pupillages and encouraging people who, sadly, did not then later find better, long-term employment. I am glad that this debate has been brought to the House, as it is important to raise awareness of when an intern is due the national minimum wage so that the 1998 Act is followed. In our current legislation, the term "intern" is not defined explicitly, and it can be ambiguous as to whether a person performing an internship also falls under the definition of "worker". Work experience can be called a placement or an internship, and volunteering schemes that do not involve working activities are also often referred to as internships. As this is a complicated area where the line between what should be an unpaid internship and a contractual working relationship is often blurred, and can indeed be crossed without either party meaning to do so, it is most effective for the Government to offer guidance to assist employers to adopt best practice The Minister may well take away from this debate the point made by my hon. Friends the Members for Elmet and Rothwell and for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg) about the maximum of 28 days in any calendar year. That would be a good starting place for working out whether a person is an intern or somebody on work experience, or whether they have entered into a more contractual relationship with the person offering the experience It is vital that employers as well as employees are aware of the statutory provisions that are available, because some of these roles do not require the minimum wage to be paid. There is no doubt, however, that there are situations where what is referred to as an internship describes work activities, and those participating in the scheme should be paid. I applaud my hon. Friend the Member for Elmet and Rothwell for drawing attention to that ambiguity While I welcome the information provided by the Government through their website, gov.uk, and ACAS, I urge them to continue to review the effectiveness of the guidance they are offering in this area. I encourage all businesses to make provision to allow young people of all socioeconomic backgrounds such opportunities.
National Minimum Wage (Workplace Internships) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-11-04
Topic: Labor
Henry Edward Millar Smith (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend is absolutely right that internships and work experience can give opportunities to young people. Many charities and small businesses could not necessarily afford to pay for internships. It is therefore important to have greater clarity on what is appropriate, and I congratulate her on asking the Government to keep this matter under review.
National Minimum Wage (Workplace Internships) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-11-04
Topic: Labor
Victoria Atkins (Conservative, Centre-right): I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend. I also welcome the work done by the Government to promote fair and open access to paid internships through the graduate talent pool, the social mobility business compact, and the common best practice code for high-quality internships, which ask employers to ensure that any internships they offer are paid fairly Alongside offering guidance, we must continue to crack down on employers who are not treating employees fairly. I welcome the fact that this year the Government have increased HMRC’s enforcement budget by £7 million, improving its ability to crack down on employers who exploit interns and fail to pay staff properly. I declare an interest in that I used to prosecute criminals for HMRC. I wish it well in its endeavours. Employers who pay workers less than the minimum wage not only have to pay back arrears of wages at current minimum wage rates, but face financial penalties of up to £20,000 per worker. I hope that the message leaves this Chamber today that it is not worth employers trying to get round the rules, and that they must treat their employees and interns fairly.
National Minimum Wage (Workplace Internships) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-11-04
Topic: Government Operations
Alec Shelbrooke (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend is summing up very well a lot of what has been said. She was in the Chamber when I spoke and will have heard my comments about the model contract from the Institute of Directors, and the voluntary internships with Vivienne Westwood being advertised from 1 January 2017 based on those hours. Does my hon. Friend agree that something has to be done to tidy up this area so that all these things sit properly within the law?
National Minimum Wage (Workplace Internships) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-11-04
Topic: Labor
Victoria Atkins (Conservative, Centre-right): I am extremely grateful to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I apologise for any discourtesy; none was intended I agree very much with my hon. Friend the Member for Elmet and Rothwell, and I would imagine that any business would be embarrassed to hear itself being spoken about in the way that that company has been spoken about in this debate. We know that the matter has reached the national media and I hope that they will also take notice of what has been said today in the Chamber In conclusion, internships and work experience should help young people to build their careers on merit and hard work, regardless of their background, and while I do not believe that this Bill is the most effective way to achieve that I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for his long-standing campaign to speak up for social mobility and for young people, not only in his constituency but across the country. I thank him for bringing this Bill to the House.
National Minimum Wage (Workplace Internships) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-11-04
Topic: Labor
Alec Shelbrooke (Conservative, Centre-right): I am grateful to my hon. Friend for addressing those points. May I urge him to focus on the statistic that shows that 40% of people who are offered an internship have to turn it down because they cannot afford do to it? On opportunities and choice, we are getting close to a situation where half of those offered an internship cannot afford to do it. As my hon. Friend has said, internships are becoming a massive means of getting into the professional job market, so I urge him to keep that statistic in mind when he moves on address opportunity.
National Minimum Wage (Workplace Internships) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-11-04
Topic: Labor
Peter Heaton-Jones (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend makes a good point and I will seek to address it later in my remarks On social mobility, unpaid internships can be extraordinarily expensive for many of those wishing to go into the professional services, which are often located in the bigger cities and, in many cases, far away from rural constituencies such as mine. If young people in North Devon wish to undertake an internship in one of the larger cities, that will mean paying travel expenses and finding accommodation. For many—this goes to the heart of the point that my hon. Friend has just made—that is simply prohibitive. I do understand that that is a problem. If internships are accessible only to those with financial means, we will entrench a system where the professions are disproportionately dominated by those from families with higher incomes.
National Minimum Wage (Workplace Internships) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-11-04
Topic: Labor
Henry Edward Millar Smith (Conservative, Centre-right): As my hon. Friend has said, internships are often available only in large cities, with London being the predominant area. Does he agree that that places even more responsibility on large employers, which have the resources properly to support interns and those seeking work experience with them, to pay high costs such as those for accommodation and travel?