A fair first step into politics…

Huge advances have been made in recent years to improve the diversity of Members of Parliament. For example, around 20% of MPs are now women compared to below 4% in 1983. However, access for those who want to work for MPs as interns hasn’t necessarily improved correspondingly.

The equation is simple:

1) Interning in Parliament offers unbridled opportunities into working in politics.
2) Politics, in order to best fulfil its paramount goal of serving the public, must be representative of that public.
3) Therefore, as a key route into politics, the opportunity to be an intern must be available to all capable candidates, not just some.

Therefore, stringent safeguards are needed – such as those advocated by the Interns Network’s excellent ‘Ethical Internships’ campaign – to protect equality of opportunity. The politically engaged soldier’s son from Sunderland has to have the same chances as the offspring of the hedge fund manager from Knightsbridge.

Two simple practices would allow the door of opportunity to remain open.

1) Pay reasonable expenses, including giving fair consideration to those living outside of London.
2) Be flexible about the working hours expected from interns. This would allow the intern to pursue other part-time work to help fund their internship.

These two ‘golden rules’ are generally adhered to, but they should become not just a guideline, but an expectation.

The counter-argument often made is that interns are ‘volunteers’ and need not receive any payment since they lack the same element of mutual obligation normally present between employer and employee – in short, the intern gets more out of the internship than the employer.

This may be true, it doesn’t necessarily follow that the employer receives no advantages. From folding letters to drafting press releases, the work of interns not only allows more time for salaried office staff to undertake additional duties, it is also valuable and high quality work in its own right, done capably and enthusiastically by somebody wanting a foot-in-the-door of a politics career.

The above measures would not only accurately reflect the valuable contributions interns make, they would open up opportunity to people from all backgrounds, regardless of geographical or financial constraints…and that has got to be good for politics in general.


Adam Leeder is the parliamentary researcher to Chris Mole MP