Simone Webb’s MP, Robert Halfon, has tabled the following Early Day Motion, following coverage of her situation on Harry’s Place.
That this House notes that Simone Webb is a17 year old Harlow College student hoping to study at Oxford University; further notes that she was offered a one month unpaid internship at DIVA magazine, but was later refused on the grounds that she hoped to be reimbursed just 5 transport expenses a day, and was told that DIVA was `uncomfortable’ offering her an internship as she was `so young and without an independent budget of [her] own’; believes that barriers of this kind are a major threat to social mobility and that this is an outrageous example of internships being abused; and calls for DIVA magazine to pay reasonable transport expenses where it can, and to drop its discriminatory policy of refusing to employ people who lack `an independent budget’.
Please urge your MP to support this motion.
