Over the last few years, there has been a significant shift in the debate around unpaid internships, with businesses and young people becoming more aware in their attitudes towards unpaid internships. However as Alan Milburn’s State of the Nation report this week has rightly claimed, ‘unpaid internships are still far too common and lock out talent from entering a chosen career.’ That is why we are unsurprised by the suggestion of a four-week limit in the report, something Intern Aware has been calling for to end unpaid internships.

Businesses are really struggling to understand what the law is meant to be around internships at present, or how they are able to bring young people into their industry. It continues to be a widespread problem; 26 per cent of businesses admit to paying less than the minimum wage for their interns, and of those 82 per cent said they were useful. This potentially represents a massive breach in the national minimum wage across the country. Meanwhile 74 per cent of the British public felt that they, or someone from a family like theirs, could not afford to do an unpaid internship. There are a large number of graduates and young people that are simply shut out of the opportunity to get started in their chosen career.

Given the shifting views of the public and businesses alike against the notion of young people working for no pay, the core debate that now rests to end unpaid internships is around policy. At present, there is a fundamental breakdown of the existing national minimum wage legislation when dealing with interns. The definition of ‘worker’ in the law is a notoriously complex area, which is not helping anyone. Despite some efforts from the current government to increase enforcement of the law for interns, there is still a big gap between the current law and the investigations of HMRC. Very few reported unpaid internships are ever looked into or followed up, while in contrast employment tribunals continue to prove that the law should be on the side of most interns being paid and classified as a ‘worker’.

So is there a solution? What remains clear is that the law needs a straightforward, defined boundary to help support young people and businesses to know where they stand on this issue. At present, the system is very open-ended; if an intern wants to claim their pay from an employer or report an unpaid internship, the onus of proof is on that young person to show that they are a worker against a company (often with far superior resources and at the risk of the intern’s reference and credibility).

A four-week limit, capping unpaid internships and work experience to four weeks in the law, could provide a solution. Up to that four-week limit, the same procedure would apply as at present. If an intern does a day of work, they would need to prove they had done so through set hours, set tasks and consideration of contract. But at four weeks, the intern and the business would have a clear line that they could not extend any observation or work shadowing beyond without pay. Everyone would know exactly where they stood, and the burden of proof shifts to the business to prove that the intern was not a worker, rather than the reverse. This gives more protection to the vulnerable young person against exploitation and would effectively eliminate long-term, unpaid internships. At the same time, it would maintain existing exemptions in the law for charities and university placements and would protect genuine short-term work shadowing and work experience.

This is a workable solution, which would only require a secretary of state for business, innovation and skills to announce it as secondary legislation, rather than introducing a whole new bill through parliament. This has been drawn up by top barristers and has significant public and business support. In fact, 65 per cent of businesses support this proposal, with only 12 per cent opposing.

The commitment of the Labour party so far to helping young people and those on low incomes has included the strengthening of the national minimum wage. However, many young people and graduates continue to be excluded from the protection of the law and this could be a popular, meaningful policy to help solve an ongoing problem. Indeed, 85 per cent of the public believe interns should be paid the minimum wage or better, while the policy also has clear business support.

It is time for Labour to listen and commit to ending unpaid internships.

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Chris Hares is campaigns manager for Intern Aware

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Photo: Simon Webster