A NEW Member of the Scottish Parliament has called for MSPs to pay their interns, just a day after it was revealed that the University of Edinburgh made more than £1m from courses offering parliamentary interships.

Kezia Dugdale (Labour, Lothians) tabled a motion urging her fellow MSPs to pay interns working for a month or more a living wage of £7.15 an hour.

Dugdale told The Student it would be "hypocritical" for MSPs to claim to champion pay equality while failing to pay their own interns a "working wage," and said the big question was what changes could be made to ensure internship places were paid. 

She said, "Eventually we could envisage a code of conduct regarding how interns are treated, and ultimately have a separate office that deals with interns, who could show a party preference but not necessarily pick who they work for. That office would deal with requests and make sure they are being treated correctly.”

Dugdale said her own internship in 2004 helped her get her first job, but added: "Many people in a similar situation simply couldn't afford to work for free and an inherent injustice follows on from that."

Ben Lyons, co-director of advocacy group Intern Aware, said: "Unpaid internships restrict opportunity to the wealthy. Our democracy is being deprived of thousands of hard-working, talented young people who can't afford to work for free.

"MSPs owe it to their young constituents to put tough talk on social mobility into action and support this motion."

Dugdale studied at the University of Edinburgh for a Masters degree in Scottish Social and Public Policy and worked for four years in public affairs within higher education, firstly for Edinburgh University Students Association and subsequently with the National Union of Students. She later worked as office manager for her predecessor on the Lothians list, George Foulkes, prior to her election earlier this month.