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Deputy prime minister owns up to securing his first internship through his father’s influence in a Finnish bank Nick Clegg was forced to admit it was “wrong” that his own career had been boosted by parental connections when he was starting out, getting him time at a bank and his first job in politics. The revelation that the deputy prime minister had been helped by his father’s influence cast a shadow over the government’s announcement of a drive to end unpaid internships. As the government put more accessible internships in desirable professions at the centre of a drive to give poorer children better opportunities, it also emerged that eight coalition MPs were continuing the practice of employing unpaid interns. An anonymous intern also said he had worked for Nick Clegg in opposition. A new national internship scheme is intended to get young people into professions otherwise closed to all but those who know people in the field or “your father’s friends”, in Nick Clegg’s words. Clegg also wants to encourage people to use national minimum wage legislation to shop employers who are taking advantage of free and eager young workers. The government pointed to an announcement by the Tory chairman, Lady Warsi, that they were leading by example in closing down the civil service to all informally arranged slots of work experience from 2012. In the morning when launching the policy, the deputy prime minister was asked by Labour MP John Spellar in the Commons whether he could confirm he had secured his first internship through his father’s influence in a Finnish bank. Clegg told the house: “Yes, I can. As a teenager, yes, I did receive an internship, as, I suspect, did many people around the chamber. “Good for you if you did not. All of us should be honest and acknowledge that the way that internships have been administered in the private sector, the public sector, political parties and – I discovered when we came into government – in Whitehall as well, under 13 years of Labour, left a lot to be desired. “I was a recipient of that, as, I suspect, many others here were as well. That is what we need to change if we want to secure greater social mobility in the future.” Afterwards, at the press conference to launch the document, Clegg was asked whether it was true his father had secured him a job at the European commission through a conversation with his neighbour, former foreign secretary Lord Carrington. Clegg said: “The whole system was wrong. I’m not the slightest bit ashamed of saying that we all inhabited a system which was wrong.” Included as part of the policies is a “business compact” being signed with large companies – including the Guardian – that they seek to provide fairer access to their workplaces. Clegg asked employers to pay at least the appropriate national minimum wage or payment of reasonable out-of-pocket expenses. They should encourage schools and blind applications in the hope the best qualified will be accepted. The government also launched its child poverty strategy, putting on a statutory footing a new child poverty and social mobility commission which will enshrine in law a body to monitor the progress made by this government and future ones towards eliminating child poverty by 2020. Seven indicators at different stages of the life cycle will be monitored by different Whitehall departments to see if they help or hinder social mobility. Asked about his own party’s policy on internships, Clegg said he had just set out a new set of rules. Lib Dem interns will now receive travel expenses and up to £5 for lunch, though many questioned whether that was feasible. Eight coalition MPs and three constituency parties were advertising for unpaid interns as Clegg announced the policy. The website working4anMP currently lists unpaid intern vacancies with the Conservative MPs Aidan Burley, David Davis, David Amess, Mark Menzies and Dominic Raab, and the West Thurrock constituency Conservative party. Lib Dem MPs advertising for an unpaid intern included David Ward and John Leech, along with the Bristol and Lewes constituency Lib Dem parties. A former unpaid intern for Nick Clegg, Jonny Medland from Oxford told the group Intern Aware he had “worked on all sorts of projects – drafting articles to appear in the local and national press, researching policy announcements from the then Labour government and making notes for speeches in the Commons. It definitely wasn’t ‘work experience’ but was exactly the sort of work which the coalition is now, rightly, insisting you should be paid for”. A survey conducted this year by the parliamentary branch of Unite revealed that half of MPs from the main parties are offering work experience without paying expenses. Nick Clegg Unemployment Apprenticeships Allegra Stratton Graham Snowdon guardian.co.uk