Guest Blog: Answers for Parliamentary Interns

So the general election is finally over, and the dust is beginning to settle in parliament. The upheaval of coalition negotiations is largely over, cabinet positions have been dished out, and the new parliament is getting into action.

Regardless of your political affiliation, it appears that we survived the election, and the country is still largely functioning.

However, there is one group in Parliament who have been significantly overlooked in all the confusion; you guessed it, interns.

You may have heard of the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA), they made the press recently for doing some very popular (or perhaps populist?) things like preventing MPs from buying second homes, making them pay up front for their expenses and removing first-class travel perks. Regardless of what you think of the details of those changes, they are unlikely to financially cripple MPs; for someone on £60k+, shelling out yourself to upgrade your train ticket to first class is not the end of the world.

However, what received a lot less press coverage were IPSA’s rulings with regards to staffing, and even less, interns. As the Guardian reported last week, IPSA is effectively forcing MPs to make staff redundant. Under the new rules, staff pension contributions must now be taken from each MP’s staffing budget, which in effect amounts to a pretty considerable cut in the money available to pay salaries. In addition to this, IPSA has increased the minimum starting salary for a Parliamentary Researcher. Whilst bringing Researchers’ salaries in line with those in the real world is good news, reducing the overall pot of money available at the same time means that the ends just don’t meet. MPs are genuinely making staff redundant – I am hopeful that even after the MPs’ expenses scandal, popular opinion would not consider this acceptable.

So how does this impact upon interns? Well, the Campaign for Fair Parliamentary Internships called upon IPSA to make payment for all parliamentary interns mandatory. After a considerable amount of umming and aaahing, and producing a draft proposal which did include this ruling, they then decided not to go through with it. Well, I say they decided not to, there is no public account of the decision-making process, and IPSA have yet to respond to a long-standing Freedom of Information Request about their negotiations, so they may as well have flipped a coin.

However they came to the decision, between the initial draft consultation and the final IPSA expenses scheme, the proposal to pay all interns mysteriously disappeared. It was replaced by the ruling that, if MPs chose to pay their interns, they have to provide them with a contract. Which makes sense. But also logically makes it ok for an MP to give their intern no pay, and therefore no contract.

But if an MP should want to pay their intern, where does the money come from?

The staffing allowance.

You see the problem?

So… no extra money made available for paying interns, no mandatory payment for interns, a decrease in staffing allowance, and an increase in staff salaries. It isn’t looking likely that parliamentary interns are going to be paid any time soon. In fact, I know of at least one MP who has paid her interns for years, and is now faced with the prospect that she simply can’t afford to do it any more.

So after heralding themselves as the body to open up parliament and make the system of allowances fair and accountable, IPSA has effectively taken parliament backwards in its progress towards breaking the link between the ability to secure a parliamentary internship, and personal financial circumstances.

As you may be able to tell, I am a little bitter. I met a very nice man from IPSA about six months ago, and advised them on how they could best create a workable, realistic system which would make life fairer for future interns. He agreed that this was important, he took on board my suggestions in our meeting, my written submission to the consultation, and that of the many, many interns, researchers and MPs who wrote in on this issue. On behalf of all of those who just can’t afford to intern for free in parliament, and who realistically stand little chance of getting a job as a researcher, I’m angry.

I would like to know what happened, why the consultation was ignored, and who decided that further closing access to parliament for those on low incomes was an acceptable sacrifice to make to save a few pounds. However, with an FOI request revealing that IPSA intend to spend over £183,000 on their own PR team to defend the organisation, it seems unlikely that we will be getting answers any time soon.

Helen Undy is a former Senior Researcher and Head of Office for Phil Willis MP