MSPs have become embroiled in a cash-for-access row after it emerged that Holyrood internships were being sold for over £5000.

Edinburgh University has confirmed making £1.7 million in fees from selling placements to students.

One Holyrood source said the revelation made “a mockery” of the Parliament’s much-vaunted equal opportunities policy. Interning, the practice of working for free to gain experience, has rocketed up the political agenda in recent months.

Nick Clegg’s opinion

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg slammed internships, saying they benefit those from wealthy backgrounds. Critics say the middle-classes use their connections to fix placements for their children, and young people from poorer families cannot afford to work for nothing.

Clegg said: “For too long, internships have been the almost exclusive preserve of the sharp-elbowed … Unfair, informal internships can rig the market in favour of those who already have opportunities.”

The Liberal Democrat leader’s solution is to advertise work opportunities competitively, while also offering “proper remuneration” to interns.

A commission chaired by former Labour Cabinet minister Alan Milburn also concluded: “Securing an internship all too often depends on who you know.”

One of the most elitist intern schemes…

The Sunday Herald can now reveal that one of the most elitist intern schemes exists not in London, but in the Scottish Parliament.

Since 1999, Edinburgh University’s Institute of Governance has run a 15-week placement for undergraduates, which ends with interns completing a research project. The programme is centred around a student getting an internship with an MSP. Hundreds of students, mostly from the US, have participated, as have dozens of MSPs.

The “Parliamentary Internship Programme” states: “Enrolment into the programme is highly selective and will be restricted to about 20 students in any semester.”

More controversially, entry is further restricted by the fact that the University charges over £5000 per internship, which covers administration of the scheme as well as tuition and teaching costs.

Although some students have paid for the scheme through a scholarship, critics believe the fee may exclude academically able students who do not have deep pockets.

Fears also exist that the internships mean politicians getting free labour without paying the national minimum wage.

A Holyrood source said: “This scheme makes a mockery of the Parliament’s founding principles of transparency and equal opportunities for all.

“The new Presiding Officer needs to decide if she is comfortable with an arrangement which allows an outside body to make money in return for providing access to MSPs and Parliament staff.”

How Edinburgh University stands…

According to figures obtained by this newspaper, the intern programme has poured money into university coffers.

In 12 years, the institution has taken over £1.7m from students for participation in the scheme.

The fee has risen from £3640 in 1999 to £5560 last year, while the number of internships has doubled in the last 10 years.

The annual financial benefit to the university has also jumped, from £69,160 to £222,400 in a decade.

The scheme comes in spite of a Holyrood committee existing solely to “consider and report on matters relating to equal opportunities and upon the observance of equal opportunities within the Parliament”.

Unsurprisingly, the scheme is hugely popular with the students who can afford the £5000 to get a prized CV boost.

Brian Gilbert, who was on the 2008 programme, is quoted on the School of Governance website saying: “This is truly a once-in-a-lifetime experience and I am so happy to have done this.”

Naser Javaid, who interned for Tory MSP Sir Jamie McGrigor, said: “I have absolutely fallen in love with Scotland … I had the most wonderful experience and coming here was the best decision I ever made.”

The university’s website says 23 MSPs, spanning the political spectrum, accepted interns from the programme in spring last year.

These included SNP MSP Alasdair Allan, Tory leadership hopeful John Lamont, and former LibDem member Jamie Stone, described as a “stalwart” of the scheme.

The Holyrood row comes after the UK Conservatives were criticised for selling internships at a fundraising event. Tory supporters paid around £3000 each so that their children could get placements with City hedge funds.

John Wilson, an SNP MSP for Central Scotland, said: “Edinburgh University has a lot of explaining to do, as it appears to be using its privileged position to profit from the Parliament. I would imagine there are many MSPs who do not know that these interns are paying for their places.”

An MSP who accepted an intern during the last term said: “I knew nothing about the fee.”

A spokesman for Edinburgh University said: “This is an academic programme in which we work very closely with MSPs and their staff. The period which students spend in Parliament is an integrated, supported and assessed part of the wider internship programme. Our students are properly trained and informed to work with MSPs.”

Asked what the fee covered, the spokesperson said: “Tuition, teaching, supervision, administration of the programme itself, as well as the central services which are vital to any educational experience.”

A spokesperson for the Scottish Parliament said: “Individual members and parties take responsibility for intern arrangements.”

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