Ban unpaid internships that penalise working-class young, say MPs

MPs have called for a ban on unpaid internships, which they say unfairly penalise working-class young people who cannot spend long periods of time working for free to get into their chosen career.

More employers should also consider contextual recruitment, according to a report by members of the all-party parliamentary group (APPG) on social mobility. Under this system, firms are required to consider a candidate’s achievements in the context of their underprivileged background.

Leading figures in the arts and media, including Peter Bazalgette, chair of the Arts Council and ITV, told MPs that the growing expectation that young people will work for free or for less than the national minimum wage was the key barrier to a creative career for working-class young people.

Bazalgette called unpaid internships “the curse of the arts industry” during the inquiry sessions, which also heard from actor Michael Sheen, who said the failure to promote working-class voices in film, theatre and TV had a wider impact on society as a whole.

In their report, titled the Class Ceiling, the MPs also recommend that employers increase efforts to make recruitment less London-centric, by covering travel costs for interviews or work experience placements and increasing regional outreach.

The inquiry followed findings by the education charity the Sutton Trust in 2016, which showed that the UK’s most high-profile jobs – from the entertainment industry to politics and journalism – were disproportionately populated by alumni of private schools and Oxbridge.

Roughly a third of MPs and FTSE 100 chief executives who were educated in the UK went to private schools, which rose to half of the top 100 news journalists, three-quarters of all high court and appeals court judges, and more than two-thirds of British Oscar winners. About 7% of children are educated privately in the UK.

The MPs’ report said employers would “ultimately benefit from harnessing the broader experience and potential of the country as a whole and not just established groups”. It said young people who started from a disadvantaged background needed more encouragement to reach their full potential. “Employers look for confidence, resilience, social skills and self-motivation in their employees, but for those who have had little to no exposure to extracurricular activities, work experience or mentoring, these skills can be difficult to acquire,” the report said.

The Labour MP Justin Madders, chair of the APPG, said social mobility was “shamefully low” at the top of UK society. “Throughout this inquiry we have heard from profession after profession that significant barriers exist to young people from less advantaged backgrounds,” he said.

“If the current government is serious about improving access to top jobs for those from less advantaged homes, they need to take a much more strategic approach. This means linking the work of schools, universities and employers to build a real business case and practical plan for improving social mobility.”

Peter Lampl, founder and chair of the Sutton Trust, said employers – supported by the government – had to do more to improve diversity through recruitment practices, including greater use of contextual admissions. “Getting more graduates from low- and middle-income backgrounds to the top of the professions is vital both for social mobility and the economic success of the country,” he said.

Alan Milburn, chair of the government’s social mobility commission, said: “Research has consistently shown that people from more affluent backgrounds, who attend private schools and elite universities, take a disproportionate number of the best jobs, while those from poorer backgrounds are being systematically locked out.

“Many top firms are doing excellent work in opening their doors to people from all social backgrounds, but there are still too many that need to wake up and realise that it makes sound business sense to recruit people from all backgrounds. We welcome the findings in this report and fully support its recommendations – in particular, the call for employers to use contextualised recruitment tools and for unpaid internships to be banned.”