An amendment to the Employment Rights Bill to ensure that work experience placements do not flout minimum wage laws has been put forward.
The Bill is currently going through committee stage in the House of Lords, where each clause is debated before a final reading and ultimately Royal Assent.
On behalf of Lord Holmes of Richmond, who originally proposed the amendment, Viscount Colville of Culross proposed that a clause be included in the Employment Rights Bill that prevents employers from providing unpaid work experience in excess of four weeks.
The amendment would ensure that unpaid work experience could not be used as a loophole to avoid National Minimum Wage regulations.
Work experience
“This amendment is an attempt to address the wretched, exploitative workplace faced by far too many people wanting to enter work,” said Colville.
“It attempts to create a new definition of ‘work experience’, which would ensure that participants are educated, and not exploited, as they attempt to join the workforce.”
The government has already pledged to launch a call for evidence into banning unpaid internships, which almost two-fifths of employers would happily support, according to the Sutton Trust.
The amendment seeks to define work experience as a separate activity, and ensure there is a difference in law between interns – who should be paid – and those undertaking work experience, who should not.
Work experience would be defined as “observing, replicating, assisting with and carrying out any task with the aim of gaining experience of a particular workplace, organisation … or work-related activity”, the amendment proposes.
A four-week time limit on work experience would “allow the participant sufficient time to get a grip on what happens in a specific workplace… but not enough time to become established as an unpaid intern”, Colville added.
“This amendment is focused on the many thousands of young people who want to get into work but do not know what they want to do.
“If the government takes up the work experience category laid out in this amendment, it will give those people a taste of the workplace, which is crucial to engaging them and crucial to getting them engaged in the job market.”
However, a number of peers contested the proposal, suggesting that it would be a challenge to implement and enforce.
Lady O’Grady of Holloway (former TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady) said she was concerned that “bad employers would be able to offer rolling unpaid internships, shoving young people through a revolving door of not getting paid as they are entitled to be for the productive work that they do”.
“They should be paid at least the national minimum wage. What I would support is the proposed Fair Work Agency launching a major crackdown on young people being robbed of their dreams and opportunities through the exploitative practice of unpaid internships,” she added.
Lord Sharpe of Epsom, meanwhile, said the amendment would need “careful consideration” to ensure that organisations such as charities were not limited in how they could provide meaningful work experience.
There are two further sittings to discuss the Bill in the House of Lords before it receives its third reading and moves to the final stages.
Last month, the Institute of Employment Rights accused the government of falling short of its promises with the Bill, claiming that unscrupulous employers would still be able to use practices such as fire and rehire or continue to employ workers on precarious contracts.
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