B

Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)

Speaking in the House of Lords on 2 September 2025

Debate

Civil Service: Interns

Contribution

I thank the noble Baroness for her question and for her work in this area. She will be aware that the fast-track internship programme started in 2000 and has had many different iterations, and therefore there are well-established assessment processes in place to make sure that changes work effectively. With regard to how we are doing it, we are adopting this scheme through our test-and-learn approach within the Cabinet Office to make sure that if we do not believe it is working then we will change it. We will be using the criteria that have previously been used, which is why we are using the definition I cited. That is how I can tell your Lordships that in 2022 the internship scheme had people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds at a level of 33% of applications, but that fell to 19.7% and now has fallen even further at this point. We have the data to demonstrate why we need to do this.

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