Move to ban unpaid internships and widen access gains cross-party support

A majority of the public would support a ban on long-term unpaid internships and measures to stop internships being given out informally, such as to the children of employees, a study by the Social Mobility Commission suggests.

Some 72% of 5,000 respondents support a change in the law, while 42% advocate an outright ban on unpaid work experience of over four weeks’ duration. As The Guardian reports, 80% of respondents also agreed that firms should be forced to advertise placements, rather than offer them informally to those with the right connections.

On Friday MPs are set to debate a second reading of a private members’ bill brought by Conservative peer Chris Holmes, which calls for unpaid internships to be abolished. Holmes said: “Unpaid internships leave young people in a catch-22 situation; unable to get a job because they haven’t got experience and unable to get experience because they can’t afford to work for free. The practice is clearly discriminatory, crushes creativity and competitiveness and holds individuals and our country back.”

Alan Milburn, chair of the Social Mobility Commission and a former Labour cabinet member, commented: “Unpaid internships are a modern scandal which must end. Internships are the new rung on the career ladder. They have become a route to a good professional job, but access to them tends to depend on who, not what, you know, and young people from low income backgrounds are excluded because they are unpaid. They miss out on a great career opportunity and employers miss out from a wider pool of talent. Unpaid internships are damaging for social mobility. It is time to consign them to history.”