Former senior civil servant Sue Gray has questioned the government’s decision to limit the summer civil service internship programme to students from working class backgrounds.
Ministers announced last month that the 2026 version of the scheme – which opens for applications next month – will only be available to students from a lower socio-economic background so that the civil service "harnesses the broadest range of talent and truly reflects the country".
In a debate in the House of Lords on the decision on Tuesday, the newly enobled Baroness Gray said she did not doubt the government’s “good intentions”, but asked for the “evidence base for reaching this conclusion”.
“As a former civil servant from the most working-class of backgrounds, while I am sure there are very good intentions here, I would have found it really difficult when I joined the civil service to not have been exposed to a wider group; I learned so much from that,” she said.
She added: “I think there are good intentions but there are other ways that the civil service can be opened up as well.” She did not expand on those other methods.
Gray was born to Irish immigrants who moved to Tottenham, in north London, in the early 1950s. Her father was a furniture salesman and her mother worked in a bar.
She joined the civil service straight from school and rose through the ranks to become second permanent secretary in the Cabinet Office in 2021. She became a household name after taking over the Partygate investigation into Covid lockdown breaches in government buildings later that year.
Gray left the civil service in 2023 to become then-leader of the opposition Keir Starmer’s chief of staff. She was No.10 chief of staff to Starmer for his first four months as prime minister, before she was sacked. Starmer later said she was the “wrong” person for the job.
Responding to Gray’s comments, government whip Ruth Smeeth said: “I rarely wish to disagree with my noble friend, but in this instance I do. Obviously, she has huge experience, but this is one of a series of measures the government are taking to make sure that access to the civil service and our wider public service as an employer is based on talent and ability.
“This is not about stopping the civil service being a meritocracy; it is about ensuring that the meritocracy is available to everyone regardless of where they were born.”
Old version of scheme 'failed people from lower socio-economic backgrounds'
Tuesday's debate began with a question from Simone Finn on how government will assess whether young people are from a lower socio-economic background when recruiting to the internship scheme.
Smeeth – who is also known as Baroness Anderson – confirmed that the scheme will assess eligibility for the summer internship scheme based on parental occupation at the age of 14, the method identified by the Social Mobility Commission as the most accurate measure of socio-economic background.
Baroness Finn, who is a former Downing Street deputy chief of staff, questioned this measure and how it could meet the civil service requirement to be fair and open.
“The changes proposed by the government to the summer internship programme would allow the child of a mechanic, an electrician or even possibly a toolmaker to apply but discriminate against the child of a roofer, a taxi driver or a nurse, who would be deemed ineligible,” she said.
“Quite apart from this dramatically reducing the range of talent, does the noble baroness really believe that this is still a fair, open and, indeed, sensible process?”
Smeeth said the “crucial point” was that the a place on the internship programme is not the award of a permanent position in the civil service.
The paid internship lasts for two months. However, interns who perform well are fast-tracked to the final stages of the Fast Stream selection process if they decide to apply for a job after graduation.
“This is about how we ensure that those people from all classes who have talent and ability have access,” Smeeth said. “We are talking about 200 people a year getting access to an internship programme, one of several that are run by the civil service – never mind others that are run by the wider public service – to make sure that we do have a meritocracy.”
Smeeth also brought up the previous, long-lasting iteration of the internship scheme – before Rishi Sunak's government made it open to all – which was available to students from ethnic minority and lower socio-economic backgrounds and those with a disability, and said this had “increased the number of disabled people and those from minority ethnic backgrounds but failed those people from lower socio-economic backgrounds”.
She said the scheme “had people from lower socio-economic backgrounds at a level of 33% of applications, but that fell to 19.7% and now has fallen even further at this point”.
Smeeth also revealed that the new version of the scheme will use the government’s “test-and-learn approach” so that “if we do not believe it is working then we will change it”.
The tweak to the scheme received more positive feedback from Frances O’Grady, the former general secretary of the British Trades Union Congress.
O’Grady said she would welcome “any initiative that helps kick the door open for young people from working-class backgrounds who, by the way, have plenty of merit but have been denied opportunities and face real barriers”. But she also noted that the class make-up in the jobs at the top of the civil service have “barely changed over decades”, and what the government will do to ensure interns who are successful “end up climbing that ladder and reaching the top, achieving their dreams”.
Smeeth said O’Grady had got “to the nub” of why the government decided to change the entry rules.
“This is about making sure that the people who serve our country reflect our country, based on merit, talent and ability and not where they came from,” she said. “We want that to be reflected throughout the civil service.”
She also told peers that the number of applicants to the civil service internship schemes and the “fast track” – presumably referring here to the Fast Stream – had increased by 65% in the last 12 months.
Francis Maude, the former minister for the Cabinet Office, meanwhile looked at the issue from another angle, suggesting the government would have no success in improving social diversity in the civil service “without creating genuine parity of esteem between the so-called policy profession and the professions in the civil service to do with implementation – procurement, finance, and so on”.
“Policy officials are more than twice as likely to hold senior civil service status and overwhelmingly likely to achieve the top jobs in the civil service, and until that white collar/blue collar distinction is removed, all her efforts are likely to be in vain,” he said.
Smeeth said Maude had made “a very interesting point” which she would “reflect on and go back to officials to discuss”.
“As someone who used to represent the electricians and engineering union, I agree that parity between white and blue collar is always for the best,” she added.