I have done a huge amount of work with a wide range of groups and bodies to ensure that this will be valuable work experience for qualified people and to ensure in particular that people who have been unable to get any work experience in the current climate will be able to do this and that this will constitute the first step for them in getting a job. The experience in many other countries shows that if people do a good internship it is often a route to permanent employment, even with the company with which they have done their internship. This is an important step forward in terms of our attempts to give people, particularly those who have found themselves unexpectedly unemployed because of the current crash, an opportunity.

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