By Hazel Blears - 22nd February 2011
A new interns scheme means that Parliament can show the way forward and help youngsters of all backgrounds to get a foot on the employment ladder, says Hazel Blears.
In the past month there has been a renewed focus on the role of interns in Parliament, including the conditions that they work under, the duties that they are asked to perform and the different opportunities available to applicants depending on their background.
It’s a complex problem: more and more MPs are being drawn from people who have had the chance to get experience of politics, but the nature of most political internships means that opportunities to take the crucial first step of gaining work experience are limited to an increasingly narrow pool of talent.
In other words, at a time when we need more than ever to reconnect with the British people, there is a real danger that Parliament and politics in general are actually becoming less representative.
My concern – and a concern that I know is shared by a number of MPs from both sides of the House – is that unpaid internships freeze out a wide range of people for whom undertaking unpaid work in Parliament is just not viable. In particular, people from lower-income backgrounds, or those living far away from London, cannot gain work experience in politics – not necessarily because the positions aren’t there, but because the support that they need clearly is not.
A parliamentary researcher, Katherine, recently told me that she’d spent last summer working as an intern for an MP, and used that experience as a springboard to gaining a full-time position in a MP’s parliamentary office. Katherine said that she was only able to take up her offer of an internship because she was offered the London Living Wage by her MP – without it she doubts that she’d be in the position that she is today.
Katherine is one of the fortunate ones. I know that most MPs would like to pay their interns, but unfortunately for many this remains impossible.
The changes that were made to staffing budgets last year mean that there is less money that can be used to employ permanent staff and interns. So MPs are placed in a no-win situation – face criticism for having an unpaid intern or choose not to have one, restricting valuable opportunities for work experience in politics.
This is a cross-party problem and needs a non-partisan solution. Since last year’s election I have been working with fellow Members Eric Ollerenshaw and Jo Swinson to create a scheme that will give people from working class backgrounds the chance to work as paid interns in Parliament. It’s not been easy but we are now starting to see our plans take shape.
Our programme crosses party boundaries – we’ll be placing interns with MPs from all parties – and is enthusiastically supported by the Speaker who has given his name to the scheme, to be called Speaker’s Parliamentary Placements.
Last month the House of Commons Commission unanimously voted to approve our scheme, and the first interns will be joining us after the summer recess.
To make sure that we really are opening up internships to a wider audience, our scheme will be run in association with the Social Mobility Foundation, who will be devising criteria to select those who would normally feel that applying for a political internship would be a waste of time.
The overwhelming majority of our funding will come from external donors, and I know that Eric, Jo and I have already spoken to a number of people and organisations who are keen to support our project. The amount of money that we can raise will directly impact the number of interns that we can recruit, so we are determined to find as many donors as possible.
Some people might think, to coin an American term, that this is using a band-aid to dress a bullet-wound. Well, Earle Dickson – the creator of the band-aid – rose from his position as a humble cotton buyer to become vicepresident of the company he worked for. If our scheme can give similar success to any of our parliamentary interns, than we will be able to reflect on a job well done.
Article Comments
Will the scheme be open to all students, or just working-class ones? If it is limited to certain students, surely that is equally bad as the current system?
Alex
3rd May 2011 at 2:20 pm
This is a welcome development. It's not great MPs take on people without paying.
The law is simple- if an intern is doing work a paid person would do otherwise, it's illegal, but this simple fact isn't realised. MPs should stop taking interns completely if they're not paid, as all it does is discriminate in favour of the rich, regardless of the argument about experience.
To work in politics means living in London, the 3rd most expensive in the world. With rent averaging 100 ppw for a room, the only people who can afford to work unpaid are the rich. It's not an 'investment' as it's not possible to invest without having the initial capital at hand, meaning only the rich can do this.
This scheme is good, but will only work if all interns have the option to a- work part time, so they can earn extra cash on the side and the money is at least 8 pph. Furthermore, there should also be some positive discrimination from those who live in inner london boroughs, as it's often the case inner London boroughs get left out.
CRAIG MELSON
28th Feb 2011 at 1:50 am
This is an extremely welcome move. May I congratulate Hazel, Jo and Eric and all those who have worked with them on this initiative.
The Parliamentary Resources Unit (PRU), a pooled research team supporting Conservative MPs, already pays the London living wage and offers additional bursaries to contribute to other costs facing interns who otherwise could not afford to live in London and take advantage of the opportunity to experience the work of the Unit. Further details of the scheme and how to apply are on our website: www.parliamentaryresources.com
The Unit can only do this as it benefits from an economy of scale that no individual MP can match, so the new Speaker's Parliamentary Placements are very welcome.
A new pooled team is being formed to work for Labour MPs which we hope would be able to offer similar opportunities in future. We also hope that the revised version of the IPSA Expenses Scheme to be published in March will enable individual MPs to afford to support interns whatever their personal financial circumstances.
Those interested in working in Parliament generally should regularly check the Working for an MP website - www.w4mp.org - where most vacancies for full-time roles and internships are advertised.
Iain Corby
23rd Feb 2011 at 12:22 pm
Hazel Blears is to be praised for her initiative to get more young people from lower income backgrounds working as parliamentary interns. The seat of a nation's government should be representative of its people, and that can never happen if, as now, the majority of MPs and future MPs come from a handful of public schools and universities.
The protests over tuition fees and the cuts to public spending have demonstrated that young people are engaged with politics. This could be an opportunity to encourage those with a genuine interest in politics away from the sillier reaches of the student movement and into a more constructive role.
Adam Colclough
23rd Feb 2011 at 10:30 am
This is a very welcome development. Affluence and its influence on life chances sometimes, I fear, gets sidelined in debates about the diversity of MPs; it shouldn't. This scheme sounds like a small step in the right direction. Now let's see the City, the professions and lots of others follow the same path.
Stuart
23rd Feb 2011 at 9:28 am
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