[g jones]

Interns are controversial in the press at the moment. It is fair to say they are hard work to manage. Some MPs get around that by allegedly using them as extra staff and treating them so instead of trying to see it as a learning opportunity. IPSA limits on staff budgets and a more demanding public in terms of correspondence and the internet have increased the usage of interns.

The reality is an internship with me (and ppl know it's a great office where they won't have to work-work but learn) and we will get a lot of applicants. Many of which are in the same boat. Uni students with no real world working experience whom private sector won't employ in competitive jobs market.

Guido and his entourage target Labour MPs with a one sided argument to draw in readers. At the end of the conversation i made Guido make it clear his own interns are used by him as workers and he pays them a just £60pw though the last one he paid £100pw. He was stood on thin ice himself when he picked a disagreement (again I knew about his office and he was unaware I knew)

My point is I now employ my intern and I explicitly said when he was an intern he was not there to work. He had no work experience so i would never have employed him from his CV.

My second point was I don't always have interns they are hard work and take up time supervising. There's a lot of paperwork and monitoring. Access to information for example. We have a clear policy any intern has to agree to that states clearly this is an educational placement to help them. It does not help the people of Hyndburn so why should they pay ?

My third point is after the first intern we decided against another for a long while. Then we had an American here for 16 weeks. He did no constituency or parliamentary work. He did some research work and learnt about UK parliament and democracy. We could not pay him legally and he didn't work for Hyndburn either. So Guidos comments are out of place. He is asking me to break the law by breaching his visa. Guido ranted about accomodation but he was staying in his US Unis halls of residence over here.

Fourthly we are well aware this is not fair on people in Hyndburn (or outside London). I have taken three people from here for a week each. This is time consuming and we have to be careful we concentrate on the constituency and there are issues about confidentiality, hence a lot of supervision. There is a balance to be struck. That's why on the floor of the commons I asked the Leader of the Commons when these (interns And paid) positions would be available in Accrington job centre.

We are totally right in how we have handled the matter of interns. I cannot believe anyone who is right minded would think otherwise. That's why Guido ended up losing the argument embarrasingly because he waded in without finding out the facts.