Trade Talks with India, Greenland and Israel

Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town Excerpts

Wednesday 9th March 2022 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the opening of trade talks with the governments of India, Greenland, and Israel, what steps they intend to take to support parliamentary scrutiny of the negotiating objectives.

[The Minister of State, Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and Department for International Trade (Lord Grimstone of Boscobel) (Con)]

My Lords, the Government welcome parliamentary scrutiny of our negotiation objectives. The India objectives were recently published, and we will publish our negotiating objectives for our updated Israel agreement in due course. The Government are negotiating to swiftly restore the terms of our trading relationship with Greenland. If the IAC should publish a report on these objectives, of course the Government will consider it with interest and facilitate a debate on the objectives, subject to parliamentary time.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

My Lords, in addition to that, I should say that the Minister very nicely, at 10 pm last night, sent me an extremely helpful letter which said that, as the International Agreements Committee had been asking, there would be an exchange of correspondence between the Government and our committee about how we deal with scrutiny. We have been asking for that since September, so I welcome the letter sent last night. In light of that, it would be a bit churlish, perhaps, to say that it was a shame that the New Zealand agreement was published before it had been shared with our committee, so let us put that to one side. For the moment, I thank the Minister for managing to engineer this big move forward and just ask him to confirm that when that exchange of letters has been agreed, it will be published in the normal manner.

[Lord Grimstone of Boscobel (Con)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to be congratulated by the noble Baroness; I have a high respect for her and for the committee she chairs. I apologise that there was a little bit of confusion in the timing of the New Zealand publication. It was a bureaucratic error because so much was going on, and I apologise to the noble Baroness and the House for that short delay.

CPTPP (International Agreements Committee Report)

Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town Excerpts

Tuesday 1st February 2022 Grand Committee

Moved by

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

That the Grand Committee takes note of the Report from the International Agreements Committee UK accession to the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP): Scrutiny of the Government’s Negotiating Objectives (10th Report, HL Paper 94).

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

My Lords, I am delighted to open this debate, which covers the UK’s application to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership. It is a trade agreement between 11 countries, stretching from Vietnam to Peru. It includes countries such as Japan, with which we already have bilateral deals, and others with which we are currently negotiating such deals.

The International Agreements Committee report before us was the first parliamentary report on negotiating objectives for a post-Brexit agreement. It, and indeed this debate, reflects our commitment to ensuring that Parliament has the opportunity to inform the negotiations. The debate takes place in the light of the Government’s application and their objectives, our report, which was based on hearing from 16 witnesses and 43 written submissions, and the Government’s somewhat disappointing response to it. International Agreements Committee staff and members worked hard to scrutinise the Government’s objectives, and we will hear shortly from five of our members, including the noble Lord, Lord Udny-Lister, the most recent recruit to our committee.

There are three key points that I would like to make in opening. First, those we heard from were broadly supportive of accession, many keenly so. Secondly, where there are worries, these arise largely from this being a pre-cooked agreement to which we will simply have to accede and may not be able to amend so as to answer some very real questions posed by a number of sectors.

We would be the first joiner after the founding 11, so it is unclear whether those 11 will allow some carve-outs from existing obligations, whether by side letters or waivers. Such exemptions will be vital for some of our sectors, so it is important to know whether the Government will prioritise these, whether they would have the force of a treaty, and whether they would therefore be subject to scrutiny under CRaG. The extent to which the agreement can be changed, at the very least by carve-outs to reflect UK interests, will be key, such as in the case of the European Patent Convention, whose requirements CPTPP rules directly conflict with. Accepting existing CPTPP rules on this could jeopardise the UK’s continued membership of the European Patent Office.

There are similar questions over drugs for the NHS, and whether the car industry would be able to take advantage of rules of origin prioritising supply chains in the Pacific region. I therefore hope that the Minister will set out the Government’s assessment of whether the UK will be able to negotiate such reservations and side letters, and whether the Government are actively pursuing such options.

Thirdly, some advise that the potential economic gains from accession are very minor. My own arithmetic reckoned that it would be about £2 per head in Wales over seven years. The Government themselves estimate a mere 0.08% increase in GDP over 15 years, and even that is dependent on new trade with Malaysia, which has yet to ratify the agreement.

Whatever the arguments about the potential economic gains from accession, any such benefits will be realised only with considerable help from government to assist businesses to take full advantage of the new trade freedoms. Yet we hear from the UK Fashion and Textile Association that it has not seen much export development going on. The NFU suggested that

“the government should put more energy and resource into export promotion and marketing”.

Our report welcomed the announcement of a new food and drinks export council to support farmers, and food and drinks businesses, to maximise export potential. However, we have yet to hear anything about its establishment. Could the Minister outline the progress in setting this up and indicate, perhaps, when it will be operational? Could he also indicate what export support will be available to businesses beyond the agri-food and drinks sectors?

We also know that there are continuing concerns from the devolved nations, including about the lack of any granular impact assessment; the promised one is due after the final treaty is signed, so clearly too late to influence anything. The devolved Governments are worried partly about the cumulative impact of the New Zealand deal, the Australia deal and now the CPTPP deal on their economies, and partly about the continued insufficient involvement of their Governments, who probably reacted rather badly to the Government’s assertion in their response to our report that as

“Negotiation of goods market access is a reserved matter … DIT protocol restricts information sharing around the compilation of these sections of the mandate and progress”.


That really is not involving the whole of the UK in the negotiations, so a little more assurance would be welcome that when the UK Government negotiate for the whole of the UK, they really do involve the other Governments in a meaningful and trusted way.

As our report makes clear, there are a number of other questions, some of which my fellow committee members will cover, that need to be resolved before accession is decided on ISDS, rules of origin, climate and environmental protection, food and animal welfare standards, and intellectual property. I leave those to others.

I shall finish on one important question as to Parliament’s role in scrutinising our accession to CPTPP. The Government have said in their response that there will be “ample time” for us to scrutinise the final text, which they hope will be at least three months before the text is formally laid under the CRaG requirements. Could the Minister confirm that this will include market access schedules and any side letters?

The Minister, we know, is well aware of our committee’s demands, on behalf of Parliament, for adequate information of proposed deals, along the lines that he promised during the Trade Bill, which also covered relevant MoUs and amendments to treaties. I know that he is very open to facilitating the work of our committee, and therefore to Parliament’s input, so he will perhaps share our disappointment that our comments on this in our working practices document and now on the proposed deal were not properly answered.

On this deal, for example, we asked the Government to set out the implications of the agreement for existing agri-food supply chains that are integrated with EU member states and which could, over time, experience disruption as standards diverge. That has nothing to do with the Government’s negotiating position or any need for secrecy, yet that is what is being used as an excuse for not providing further information. Indeed, I always worry when Ministers reach for the royal-prerogative excuse, as they do in their response, as this simply means, “Leave it to us to decide”.

Similarly, we asked how the Government plan to address the contradictions between the UK’s precautionary approach and the CPTPP’s science-based approach to food standards. Again, it was nothing to do with their negotiating position or with secrecy, yet the response from the Government only mentioned the option of

“provisionally adopting SPS measures where relevant scientific evidence is insufficient”,

but gave no further detail.

We also asked for the Government’s plans for ensuring that CPTPP membership does not incentivise greenhouse gas-intensive agricultural practices in other CPTPP countries. That point was not addressed at all in the Government’s response.

The whole point of our committee is to raise questions with, and to get answers from, the Government so that we are able to report accurately and meaningfully to Parliament on proposed treaties. It is my belief, and I think that of the whole committee, that we will get better outcomes from the countries if there is a more constructive dialogue. We hope that on this first occasion it will lead to much better dialogue in the future. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for his reply. We certainly do not mind long replies, because getting those is why we are here. It has been a really useful debate. As someone who has been involved, the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, is an enthusiast and a great champion of business, and I take all that he said, including that business needs to be at the table and that must continue. That came also from other speakers, and particularly in respect of the interests of the farming community, as the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans stressed. Agreements of this sort are key to society, and we must listen to everyone, even if they do not appear to be quite as obvious as business. That goes also for the devolved authorities and the consumer voices, as mentioned by the noble Viscount, Lord Waverley.

There are obviously issues that we will watch as negotiations continue. Our Liberal Democrat colleagues, the noble Lords, Lord Purvis and Lord Oates, helpfully reminded us that their party’s historical view about free trade has morphed completely into one about sustainable trade. Our regret that there is still not enough about countering climate change in this agreement is one that I can promise that the committee will continue to raise.

Other issues were raised. The noble Viscount, Lord Waverley, the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, and my noble friend Lady Chapman stressed human rights. These trade agreements cannot stand apart from human rights, workers’ rights, consumer rights and gender issues. They are about the future of our society.

We also heard about some of the details: the noble Lord, Lord Udny-Lister, spoke about the rules of origin and the noble Lord, Lord Astor, about IP. I hope we will continue with some reassurance about the EPC; let us promise that we will keep a close eye on this. The noble Lord, Lord Gold, stressed how important it is that if this is to work, it must work for the financial and professional services. It is already the gold in the crown—not the pearl in the crown in this case—but it has to be made to work.

I am not sure that the Minister quite answered the whole of the points the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, made on medicines. It was not just about price but about speed of access, of the move from branded to generic, so that will be important.

I think we will be reassured that the Minister said that any side letters will indeed be part of the treaties so to speak—the documents—and that they would come here. I think his words on side letters were, “This might be an option in some circumstances.” That sounded a little unambitious to me. I am not sure that putting down red lines on what we want undermines the negotiating position, so I hope there will be a little more strength to his elbow there.

I will finish with two important and quite broad points. One is about China. The figures cited by the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, of, I think, a £40 billion trade deficit—I got it right—and the wise words of the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, are a context that we must not forget. The second point is the Northern Irish issue. It is not simply, as the Minister said, that we will keep to the protocol; it is whether we have undermined trust in our negotiations. As my noble friend Lady Chapman said, we appear to be threatening to tear up something we so recently signed, and I hope that will not undermine the good faith of the negotiations that the Minister and his colleagues are now taking forward.

With that, I thank everyone for contributing to this debate, which will continue the work that our committee does.

Motion agreed.

UK-Ukraine Credit Support Agreement

Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town Excerpts

Wednesday 5th January 2022 Grand Committee

Moved by

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

That the Grand Committee takes note of the Framework Agreement between the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the Government of Ukraine on Official Credit Support for the Development of the Capabilities of the Ukrainian Navy, laid before the House on 22 November 2021.

Relevant document: 13th Report from the International Agreements Committee (special attention drawn to the agreement)

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

My Lords, I wish the Deputy Chairman of Committees belated good wishes for her birthday yesterday. I am glad that we were not meeting then and that we took the extra day off so that she could celebrate in style.

This is an opportunity to welcome colleagues back and wish everyone a really happy, healthy and peaceful 2022. If only that peace could spread more widely across the globe. Sadly, today we have to look at an agreement made necessary by the apparent threats by one nation to the sovereignty and territory of a neighbouring independent country.

Those of us who have assembled in the Moses Room today well understand what has been happening on the Ukraine-Russia border, where since October tensions have arisen thanks to the build-up of Russian troops and hardware. That is concerning by itself, but we also cannot fail to note the forced closure of Memorial, which has long been dedicated to recording USSR history and its repressive record. Perhaps nowhere is that record more keenly felt than in Ukraine, where Stalin’s famine, the Holodomor, killed untold millions in the 1930s—cause enough for modern Ukrainians to cherish their independence from Moscow.

The agreement between our Government and Ukraine that we bring to the attention of the House is a credit support agreement to facilitate the development of the Ukrainian navy. It provides the framework for some £1.7 billion in loans to enable Ukraine to buy two British minesweepers, add weapons to existing vessels and work with UK firms to build missile ships and a frigate, as well as some technical infrastructure and support. Such equipment and know-how is for defensive purposes, in recognition of Ukraine’s sovereign right to determine its own borders as well as its relationships with its neighbours and beyond.

The International Agreements Committee, four of whose members will speak shortly and which I have the honour to chair, had no specific comments on this arrangement, but we sought to bring it to the attention of the House for two reasons. The first is that the agreement marks a shift in government policy. Hitherto, the Government had ruled out sending lethal arms to Ukraine, although they have provided military assistance and training. The credit facility under this agreement—loan finance for the purchase of weapons and warships—is therefore a marked change from the original position of non-lethal support, a change that was foreseen in a memorandum of intent of October 2020. Last year, the Government made clear that they consider Russia to be “the most acute threat” to our society, and they cited military aid to Ukraine to boost its capabilities as reflecting the UK’s commitment to Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty. So in that sense there should be no surprise about this move now, which actions the Government’s intent.

The second reason for bringing this credit support agreement to the attention of the House is fairly obvious: the current stand-off, which we hope remains just a stand-off, between Russia and Ukraine. This potential conflict—within Europe, within the land fought over during the last war, over territory freed from Soviet domination 30 years ago—has ramifications affecting 44 million inhabitants of Ukraine but also beyond its borders for the security of others. Russia’s worries about Ukraine forging closer links with the EU and the West provide no excuse for any deployment of troops on the border, nor for unreasonable demands aimed at NATO. This is no way to do business when diplomatic means are available.

I welcome the phone calls that President Biden has had with President Putin. Such dialogue must continue, but it should not be seen as a reward for or an outcome of a display of military force. This week’s joint statement from the leaders of the five nuclear weapons states is an important reminder of the value of talking, in addition to its precise wording that

“a nuclear war … must never be fought … We intend to continue seeking bilateral and multilateral diplomatic approaches to avoid military confrontations … and … increase mutual understanding … We are resolved to pursue constructive dialogue with mutual respect and acknowledgment of each other’s security interests and concerns.”

Those must be sentiments that we all share.

Although the International Agreements Committee had no substantive comments to make on the particulars of this credit facility, it emphasised that the provision of loans to purchase British weapons and jointly build warships represents an important shift in policy and so should be debated in your Lordships’ House.

Furthermore, given the current risk of conflict, the agreement provides an opportunity for the Government to set out their approach, working with their allies in the EU and beyond, to countering threats to Ukraine’s territory and sovereignty. We therefore welcome the Minister’s presence here today and look forward to his contribution, which will, we hope, detail the Government’s objectives and discussions with both our allies and Moscow. Although the significance of what he will say clearly goes well beyond the remit of the International Agreements Committee, it is right and proper that Parliament hears from our Government on this pressing and present situation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

My Lords, I seem to be almost the only person who has not been to Ukraine. We have heard from so many Scots, but may I say that there was a Welshman who went there —this is not a shaggy dog story. If anyone has not seen the film “Mr Jones”, I recommend it; he was indeed a Welsh journalist who was in Moscow and went to Ukraine during the period of the worst of the famine. It is an extraordinary film. Unfortunately, it came out just before the first lockdown and almost nobody saw it because all the cinemas closed, but I do recommend it.

I thank all speakers for their contributions. As noble Lords will have gathered, my noble friend Lady Liddell and the noble Lords, Lord Astor of Hever and Lord Lansley, who are on the committee, are the intellectual backbone of the work that we do. It has been particularly good to hear from them today. I had not realised that my noble friend Lady Liddell had watched the tanks when they were on the streets, and now today still watches the military ships go by. These things are not in a faraway land of which we know nothing; they really are very close to us.

To have the particular expertise and input today of the noble Lord, Lord Astor, having been not just a Defence Minister but one at a crucial moment, is really important. There has obviously been universal consensus underlining—indeed, insisting—what we should do to support the territorial integrity of Ukraine as well as the need to send a very clear signal to Moscow of our determination to be behind those words, and that we do not share the view, to use the words of the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, that Kiev is the mother of all Russian cities. It is indeed the mother of all Ukrainian cities, and long may that continue. It was also said that we must not give Putin any advantage from his sabre-rattling. As my noble friend Lady Chapman said, it is for the Ukrainians to decide their own future, and that really brings us all closer today.

It is of course not just of interest to them. As the noble Lords, Lord Lansley and Lord Astor, said, access to the Sea of Azov is vital to Ukraine, but its free movement in the wider Black Sea area is also in our interest. I think the noble Lord, Lord Risby, also emphasised this. We of course welcome someone with the expertise of chairing the Ukraine-British agreement speaking today.

The noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, my noble friend Lord Foulkes and others reminded us of the hostile acts that go beyond “normal” warfare, particularly in the cyber area. This is, as the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, said, of commercial importance but it is also important for our own infrastructure and military. I am not sure that the Minister quite addressed that point, but maybe there will be future occasions for us to discuss this. The noble Lord, Lord Purvis, set out some of the ongoing discussions taking place. I am pleased that the Minister reiterated that we are speaking to our allies—I am glad he used that word—in Europe as well as NATO, I hope on a bilateral as well as multilateral basis.

One issue that I would like to leave with the Minister on behalf of the committee is that, as our committee members in particular have said—the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, to begin with, and then the noble Baroness, Lady Liddell—it is important, when we look at these agreements in our committee, that it is within the military, the diplomatic and sometimes the wider economic context into which the agreements fall. It would be appropriate if the Explanatory Memorandums reflected the Government’s position on those contexts within which the various agreements fall. I am not sure that my colleagues know it yet but we are about to get the AUKUS agreement—that is, the USA, the UK and Australia—and it is important that that is also put within the broader context.

I just make a personal point that maybe goes much broader. The Minister went on to say, I am sure quite rightly, that this is good for our skill base and for our shipbuilding, but that should be just a bonus, an added extra, not the thrust, desire or reason behind the agreement. It happens to be good for us but that must never be the reason why we do any of this.

I am grateful for the debate that we have had. I particularly welcome, as I am sure we all do, the Minister’s reaffirmation of our support for the Government of Ukraine and his confirmation that we are working with our allies and doing everything we can to make sure that this stand-off reduces and that we do not give Putin anything for having done it. I am sure he is not very popular at home; he had 100,000 of his troops spending Christmas away from their families on the border of Ukraine. I doubt he got any brownie points there and he certainly has not done so here, and that is the message that should go back to him. I beg to move.

Motion agreed.

Professional Qualifications Bill [HL]

Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 9th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

My Lords, there are three amendments in this group, characterised by the fact that they appear more or less in the same place in the Marshalled List. My Amendment 11, which leads the group, relates to the very specific point, to which we have referred on a number of occasions: whether secondary legislation, and regulations under the Act, should be able themselves to modify primary legislation. The amendment’s intention is of course to restrict that possibility and limit it to subordinate legislation and retained EU legislation. Of course, there is a separate power in relation to the very specific EU retained legislation relating to the recognition of overseas professional qualifications.

I will not make a long argument about this, because the time is late. Ministers will say that there is a lot of private legislation out there relating to these professions, but as it happens, we are amending the primary legislation relating to architects in the Bill. I am not sure to what extent, given all we know and have discovered about the processes of seeking to recognise professional qualifications from overseas, just how often they will need to amend primary legislation and whether it really is impossible to achieve it through a route that exposes the changes to primary legislation to the proper scrutiny of this House.

Because it is linked to this, I reiterate a point I made in Committee. Ministers will acquire a power under the Bill to implement international regulatory recognition agreements and these aspects of international trade agreements by secondary legislation. I hope that the Minister—I know it is his stated intention—would expect new significant trade agreements, wherever they impacted on our legislation, to be the subject of legislation brought forward for this purpose. I do not want us to find that the legislation we see in future relating to trade agreements leaves out the recognition of professional qualifications because it can be achieved through subordinate legislation and we are therefore not able to examine it in the same way as we can other issues relating to a trade agreement, through primary legislation.

I will not talk about the protection of regulator autonomy; that is very much for the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, who raised these issues in detail in Committee, as did my noble friend Lady Noakes. I am rather grateful to my noble friend Lord Grimstone—as we are in many other respects—for bringing forward government Amendment 12, which would put a pretty cast-iron clause into the Bill to give the regulators the confidence about their future autonomy that they seek.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

My Lords, like the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, I welcome Amendment 12, which the Minister will speak to shortly. As has been said, right from the start we worried about the independence of regulators and indeed, as I suggested earlier today, the Law Society still retains a slight frisson of concern there, although I note the Minister’s words. Regulators have been worried about their independent ability to decide who was fit to practise in this country and that that might be undermined by a government diktat to co-operate with another country to accept their professionals or to drop standards in order to meet a government trade objective. As the Minister mentioned earlier, given that I am now looking at trade deals, I think he realises that I will be able to keep a beady eye on that as we go forward, along with the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, who will be looking at that as well.

As I mentioned before, it was also of concern to the users of regulated services in case their trust in professionals, which stems from a regulator keeping to standards and high quality of enforcement, might be in any way in jeopardy. However, the Government have recognised these concerns and have come forward with the very welcome Amendment 12; it must be good because there is even a Lib Dem name attached to it, so we know that this government amendment is well received. Needless to say, of course I still prefer the wording of Amendment 15, which was short and to the point, but I am content not to press it in favour of the Government’s own amendment.

[Lord Fox (LD)]

On the subject of Amendment 11, I have full sympathy with the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Lansley. If my noble friend Lord Purvis were to speak, he would remind the Committee that at the outset we were promised primary legislation for trade deals, and I am gratified that at least two noble Lords will be keeping an eye on the overall process.

In Committee, back in July, the very first amendment that we discussed, in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Purvis, was very similar to Amendment 15. Its purpose from the outset was to protect the autonomy of the regulators. In that respect we are both delighted that the Minister has listened and, through the process of discussion, has come up with Amendment 12. It does a lot of the heavy lifting in dealing with what I referred to earlier as the Trojan horse of suspicion.

In protecting regulatory authorities from Clauses 1, 3 and 4, the amendment very much creates a situation where they are allowed to go about their business in the way that we want. It is for that reason that I took the unusual step—at least, unusual for me—of countersigning the Government’s amendment, which clearly indicates our support from these Benches for what we see as a welcome and important addition to the Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

17: Clause 16, page 13, line 16, leave out subsection (3) and insert—
“(3) For the purposes of this Act, a regulator is a regulator of a regulated profession if it is listed in Schedule (Regulators of regulated professions).(3A) The appropriate national authority or the Secretary of State may by regulations amend Schedule (Regulators of regulated professions) so as to insert additional regulators.”

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

My Lords, I will move Amendment 17 and speak to its associated Amendment 20, which would place the list of regulators covered by the Bill into a schedule.

I know that the Minister is familiar with this because we argued it in Committee, but, interestingly, in asking a rather simple question—“Which regulators are covered by the Bill?”—we discovered that not only did the Minister not know but nor did the officials and indeed some of the very regulators covered. At the time, as we rather playfully looked through the list, we discovered that one of the regulators on the Minister’s list was the body regulating bouncers—which were hardly the professionals we quite had in mind on a trade deal, nor where we thought there was likely to be an unmet need. But there we are. We also found that others on the list already had the powers to authorise incoming professionals, so it did not actually require an ability for Ministers to make that possible if their own statute did not.

At the time, we noticed that the Minister was slightly uncomfortable with the absence of a comprehensive list and he very graciously said:

“I accept, without reservation, that it is not good enough that these lists have been incomplete and that noble Lords must have felt they were playing a game of blind man’s buff in trying to see who the Bill applies to.”—[Official Report, 22/6/21; col. 161.]


I confess that I was never very good at sticking the tail to the right end of the wretched donkey and I understand that it has taken BEIS a little time to get it right. I think we have had two updates of the list, with some regulators added and some gone. I see that the pig farmers have gone from the latest list and the aircraft engineers have also disappeared, as have analytical chemists. However, we have in their place chicken farmers, schoolteachers and waste managers—so it seems that the Government can turn flying pigs into chickens.

--- Later in debate ---

So, while I of course recognise the good intention of noble Lords to bring greater clarity, the Government have already responded to that. The combination of scrutiny by regulators, the fact that this list will be easily accessible on GOV.UK and the fact that it will be a requirement for the assistance centre also to publish this list and keep it up to date will provide the confidence that the House is looking for—whereas these amendments, by contrast, risk greater ambiguity. For these reasons, I ask for the amendment to be withdrawn.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

I start with an apology to the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes: of course it was her. In fact, I have just seen in my files the letter where it was shared with her and then, afterwards, with us. I apologise for that oversight.

Something that the Minister said has caused me great concern. I was suggesting that, as a way of having someone overlooking the list on GOV.UK, it be linked to in the agendas or whatever for the forum. The Minister then seemed to suggest that it would be an enormous collection, but his own policy statement says that there are about 50 regulators, and around 45 went to the first meeting that he held, so there is not a great number. We are talking not about hundreds of regulators but about what has sometimes been 61. The most it has ever been was 80, and we are down to 70 at the moment, I think—I am sorry, but I do not have the absolutely up-to-date figure in front of me. My concern is that those are not all invited to the forum, which the Minister has given me to understand that he will, on the whole, chair—he may not always be able to, but that would give it a certain kudos. I am not saying that every regulator would want to turn up, but I would find it a bit surprising if he is setting up a regulator forum but not inviting all the regulators covered by the Bill to it.

I am not expecting him to pop up now and give me that assurance, but it may be that an exchange of letters afterwards could do so—because the regulators’ forum was seen by a number of us as something that is very important. But I hope that it will not just be a hand-picked selection of the 50 or 60 regulators that are covered. Having said that, as I said at the beginning, I will not test the opinion of the House on this. I still think that I am right and he is wrong, but there you are—it happens. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 17 withdrawn.

Professional Qualifications Bill [HL]

Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town Excerpts

Tuesday 9th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

My Lords, I am most grateful to my noble friend for his introduction to his amendment and for speaking to this group, and for his very kind words about our very constructive discussions. I reciprocate by saying how much I have appreciated the discussions he and I have had and the support of the Bill team in bringing forward a number of amendments on Report which respond directly to the debates that we had in Committee. And government Amendment 1 is exactly such an amendment.

As my noble friend quite rightly said, we had general agreement that there was a need for the national authority, when making regulations under Clause 1, to do so in ways that enabled somebody with overseas qualifications and experience to be brought into the UK profession on the basis of those or other relevant qualifications or experience, or other factors.

The difficulty with the original Amendment 10, if colleagues can remember back to Committee, was the nature of the word “only” in that context, which ran the risk of being interpreted as meaning that it would either be on the basis of overseas qualifications and experience or on the basis of other relevant and appropriate factors. We did not want that to be the case; we wanted what my noble friend has put into Amendment 1, which says at proposed new subsections (3A)(b)(i) and (3A)(b)(ii) that it will be

“on the basis only of the overseas qualifications or overseas experience … or … on such other basis as the specified regulator considers appropriate”.

That is clarified with the words:

“(such as on the basis of the overseas qualifications or overseas experience… together with the results of any test or other assessment given by any person).”

To keep it simple, if, for example, a language requirement needed to be specified, it could be specified as an additional requirement by the regulator and then be combined with the overseas qualification or the overseas experience to give, in total, the appropriate basis on which to be admitted to the UK profession. For my part, I am very happy that the Government have brought forward the amendment in this form.

The purpose of my Amendment 2 is to make it clear that a UK regulator may have requirements for entry to a profession which extend beyond the relevant UK qualifications and experience. So while somebody from overseas might have something that is directly comparable to that qualification or experience, that is not the sum total of the professional requirements to be on many professional registers. Many regulators also examine people’s background, experience and suitability, and they look to fitness to practice requirements. We do not need to dwell on this at length, just to say that there is potentially a gap between qualifications and experience in a formal sense and fitness to practice in its total sense. If regulators need that gap to be filled, Amendment 2 says that they should be able to do so; the conditions should be specified in a way that enables that to happen.

Looking at it, I am content that, as long as the appropriate national authority consults the relevant professional regulators when making regulations, the power none the less exists in Clause 1 to make the condition one that extends beyond qualifications and experience into all the fitness to practice requirements that might be applied by a regulator in this country. That being the case—and we have the benefit of the consultation requirements that we are going to come on to later, which give us further assurance on this—I think we are in a position where the conditions in Clause 1 would be wide enough without the benefit of my Amendment 2.

In my own defence, I tabled Amendment 2 back in early July, so I am slightly defending Amendment 2 in the light of having not, at that point, seen all the amendments that are coming forward, not least from my noble friend. That being the case, I think we can be fairly confident that Clause 1 will be robust enough if need be, so I have no intention of pressing Amendment 2.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

My Lords, I too support Amendment 1. I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, who has urged and pushed, with perhaps a little more oomph than we could have done from this side. We are very grateful for what he has been able to do there.

I think the Minister will be thanked by quite a few people in the next couple of hours, though there may still be one or two people with a “please” in there for him. He knows that, right from the introduction of the Bill, we were worried about the ability of independent regulators to decide who is fit to practice. The words that the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, used are useful ones around being fit to practice and whether the ability of regulators to decide that could be undermined by a government diktat to set up a new system to recognise overseas practitioners wanting to come here, and therefore potentially lowering standards to meet a government view that there is a homegrown shortage in the relevant profession.

That was a concern not just to us but to the users of regulated service providers. Their confidence in professionals stems very much from the high standards and, indeed, from the enforcement that our independent regulators are able to give in the interests of consumers. But the Government have heard these concerns.

When most of us were away during the summer, the Minister spent a lot of time in meetings, and that is reflected in Amendment 1, which confirms that the regulators can apply their chosen standards as to who should practice in this country. The Minister has already referred to some regulators, and we know that the Nursing and Midwifery Council, for example, and others, have signified that they are content with the amendments. It clearly has to be for a regulator both to determine standards and to make a judgment on who has actually achieved those and therefore can be let loose on consumers or users in this country. So on this amendment, it is a “thank you” from me, and it does not require a further “please”.

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

My Lords, I add my thanks to the Minister for having met with me and for having, as I know, consulted extremely widely on the Bill. I seek a tad of reassurance from him on his Amendment 1, fully accepting the comments that the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, made on the issues around fitness to practise. It would be very helpful if the Minister could confirm that the ability of any regulator to determine fitness to practise and other issues will be up to that regulator, and that that consultation will extend across the four nations of the UK.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

3: Clause 1, page 2, line 27, at end insert—
“(5A) Regulations under this section relating to a regulated profession may not be made unless—(a) they have been published in draft form, and(b) the relevant regulators have been consulted on them for a period of three months beginning with the day on which they are published.”

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

My Lords, we have moved faster than I anticipated. I rise to move Amendment 3 but give notice that I will in due course want to withdraw it in favour of government Amendment 13 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Grimstone. It is in one way so obvious that regulators must be consulted that we would have hoped not to have to write it into the Bill. However, the Bill was published without even a complete and correct list of the affected regulators, and some were, as we have already heard, very worried at the start about their position. We also know that the Government have been a little tardy in consulting with the devolved authorities. This is about consulting regulators, so it is in a sense due to the experience of a slight lack of consultation—not in the Minister’s work over the summer, it is true, but prior to that—that we felt the need to write this on to the face of the Bill.

So it is partly because of that history, but it is also good for Parliament that this consultation must take place. It means that the regulators will be doing some of our job. They will be consulted, and they can alert your Lordships’ House and, indeed, the Commons, should they see any problems arising in this regard. Since they will have to be consulted, they will in a way be our eyes and ears over the implementation of the Bill and will alert us should anything be done contrary to the great reassurances that we have had. I am sure that that will not be the case, but it gives comfort to know that this consultation will have to happen. I beg to move.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness on her amendment and on her appointment as chair of the IAC. I too welcome and congratulate my noble friend the Minister on bringing forward his government Amendment 13. I also thank him and his officials in the Bill team for the meetings that I have had since we originally discussed this and other parts of the Bill.

I would like to put one question before we come to discuss later amendments of mine in relation to a later clause. Why have the Government limited their Amendment 13 to apply only to Clauses 1, 3 and 4 when there are other, even more—or just as—important parts of the Bill that I think would benefit from the amendment? We can come on to discuss this, but only Clauses 1, 3 and 4 will benefit from the amendment. I would be very interested to know why it has been limited to those clauses, for reasons that we will come on to discuss later.

I take this opportunity to thank the noble Lords, Lord Foulkes and Lord Bruce, for co-signing Amendment 4 and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, for his support. We are hoping to require the national authorities to consult on draft regulations under the Bill. I am sure my noble friend would agree that the measure contained in this clause is important and wide-ranging and affects a considerable number of professions—I think it is 160, as stated in the Explanatory Notes. Governments across the UK cannot be expected to have the in-depth knowledge of all these professions to enable them to legislate without pre-legislative consultation.

Let me repeat the remarks made by my noble friend the Minister in responding to a similar amendment I moved in Committee:

“I fully agree that it is important for the relevant national authority to engage with a range of stakeholders before making regulations. Because of the complexity of these matters, it would be the height of foolishness not to do that.”


I agree entirely. Does he therefore agree that in making the regulations, the range of interested parties should include the professions and others? I know that he had hoped—I think this is in connection with these amendments—that there would be agreement from the devolved Assemblies, and it would be interesting to hear why they were unable to agree legislation to put in place in this regard.

Amendment 7 is voiced in similar terms. Clause 3 grants a power to Ministers to amend legislation to put into effect provisions negotiated in free trade agreements, or other types, relating to the regulation of professions, such as the recognition of professional qualifications. We are seeking to introduce a similar requirement to consult before regulations are laid to implement international agreements under Clause 3. To quote again from my noble friend’s comments in Committee:

“In all international negotiations relating to professional qualifications, a key concern for the Government has been ensuring the autonomy of regulators and protecting UK standards, as I said earlier. In light of the Government’s concern, and the importance that we attach to this point, there are already extensive engagement mechanisms for consulting before and during these negotiations … I hope my noble friend is reassured that the Government, of necessity, would have concluded extensive engagement ahead of this point in order to actually create the free trade agreement in the first place.”


We would like an assurance from my noble friend the Minister this evening that there will be an obligation to consult, not just an intention to consult. There can be lots of good intentions, but they are never actually brought to fruition. It would also act as an aide-memoire for the Government to engage with those bodies and individuals who might be affected by the implementation of the international agreement.

Noble Lords will see that there is a theme here. Clause 5 looks at the revocation of the general EU system of recognition of overseas qualifications, and Amendment 8 seeks to pin down what will be a very wide regulation-making power. Accordingly, I ask my noble friend to agree that there will be a proper consultation. Amendment 8 introduces a requirement to consult before laying regulations that make consequential amendments following the revocation of the existing EU-derived recognition system.

In Committee, my noble friend the Minister said:

“I envisage that these enactments would be very limited in scope. They are necessary purely to tidy up the statute book after revoking the existing EU-derived system, for example by removing cross-references to the current system in other regulations. Given that these are primarily small fixes, it would be disproportionate to consult on them. The Government will, of course, work closely with interested parties to ensure that there are no unintended impacts of bringing forward these consequential amendments.”—[Official Report, 9/6/21; col. 1500.]

These amendments have come from the Law Society of Scotland, for whom I hold no brief. However, as a non-practising Scottish advocate—a non-practising member of the Faculty of Advocates—we always look to solicitors to give us instructions at the best of times.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for his reply, and my noble friends Lord Foulkes and Lord Kennedy, the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, the noble Lords, Lord Bruce, Lord Lansley and Lord Purvis, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, for their comments. The noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, and my noble friend Lord Foulkes both mentioned the Law Society of Scotland, and I think my noble friend mentioned Michael Clancy. Maybe those of us who know him can do a shout-out for his return to full health.

The Minister is right to say that we will discuss the main part of consultation with the devolveds in a later group, but we should point out two things. First, the government amendment will automatically mean that the relevant devolved regulators would be consulted, but also, in response to my noble friend Lord Foulkes’s comment about the Scottish Government not always being willing to consult, it will require them to consult with their relevant regulators. Maybe that is why they are withholding their consent Motion—I am not sure.

The problem I still have is why the government amendment does not cover the regulations in Clause 2—or actually Clause 10, which I had not noticed before. Clause 2 is quite important. In responding, the Minister used the words—I hope I got them down correctly—that it would be a duty to consult regulators “shaping any regulations made under this Bill.” He did not use the words “shaping regulations under certain parts of this Bill”, but “shaping any regulations made under this Bill”. However, his amendment does not do that. My concern is that, if there is no duty to consult, then there might be no consultation.

The Minister then said, “Oh, well, it doesn’t really matter because they may be very minor”—those were not quite his words; they were far more correct than that. Actually, if you read his amendment, it is a requirement only if

“the regulator is likely to be affected by the regulations”.

So if it was such a minor regulation that did not affect a regulator then it would be excluded from the duty anyway. I am slightly worried about that.

I wonder whether the Minister would agree to some further discussions about Clause 2 and why there is no consultation on it. Perhaps he might even be willing for us to bring this back at Third Reading if it looks as if it is actually an error and there is no good reason to exclude regulations made under Clause 2, which is the big one for some of the regulators—this is the one about whether there is a shortage of professionals. I do not know whether the Minister could indicate assent to some further discussions, so that we could clarify this at Third Reading.

[Lord Grimstone of Boscobel (Con)]

I believe the reason why we are not consulting on Clause 2 is that it has no regulation-making powers in it. The regulations dealing with the whole question of shortages are made under Clause 1, where there is a duty to consult. I stand ready to be corrected if anybody wants to look at the text of the Bill, but the regulations that would relate to Clause 2 are made under Clause 1, and there is a duty to consult on that clause. I hope that completely answers the noble Baroness’s question.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

The noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, would be looking at me now and saying, “Any good barrister knows not to ask a question to which you do not know the answer”—I just broke that rule. In the circumstances, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 3 withdrawn.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

This group has two amendments, which do indeed relate to Clause 2, in my name and, for Amendment 6, that of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter of Kentish Town. I am grateful for her support.

Noble Lords who were involved in Committee will recall that this clause, as my noble friend just explained, sets out the conditions under which the power to make regulations in Clause 1 might be used. To quote subsection (2):

“The condition is that it is necessary to make the regulations for the purpose of enabling the demand for the services of the profession … to be met without unreasonable delays or charges.”


Quite understandably, the central question is: what constitutes unmet demand? The discussion in Committee was around what we mean by “unreasonable delays or charges” in this context, and how people are to have sufficient clarity about the circumstances in which the national authorities concerned would deem it necessary to make regulations.

Noble Lords will recall that some of what the Government have outlined in the policy framework that we saw early on, and which has been amplified most recently in the fact sheets issued last week, sets out in some detail the process of thinking about what constitutes unmet demand for a profession. An illustrative scenario set out in the fact sheet enables those who want to explore this to see how it might work in practice. It includes consulting with regulators. The illustrative scenario includes talking to relevant professional bodies. It includes looking at costs and, interestingly, at value for money—the implication being that unreasonable charges are ones that do not constitute value for money. It includes vacancy rates, which are mentioned in Amendment 6, workforce statistics and modelling—again mentioned in Amendment 6—and whether an occupation is on the shortage occupation list.

I take comfort from the fact that the description the Government have given of the process by which a national authority would look at whether there was unmet demand corresponds with a set of factors that we set out in Amendment 6. I am comforted and glad that is the case, because they derive from the Government’s own explanations. It is just that I am afraid that I still do not think, even today, that Clause 2 in the form it is written tells people that that is the case. The guidance, the fact sheet and the policy framework tell people how it is to be done, but it is not all set out in the clause itself. What I set out to do in Amendments 5 and 6 is take out the offending words “unreasonable delays or charges” and incorporate all these factors into Amendment 6—which is, I take it, why the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, signed it, because she felt that it served the purpose.

How do we proceed? Do we do so simply by taking the Government’s approach? It is not for me to make their argument; they might well say that we do not need to put all this in the Bill, because when people look at what constitutes unmet demand they will be able to look at the fact sheets and the guidance, and all these factors will be there. I am looking for the Government either to say that we do need to make a change, or to be sufficiently clear about the factors that will be brought into account, that they correspond directly to what we have set down in Amendment 6, and that we and other people can rely on them in future and look to what is said today as a basis for understanding how this process is to proceed.

In passing, let us just think for a moment about resting on the question of delays and charges alone. Charges in professional services are not necessarily always the product of the availability of professionals. Sometimes it is very much to do with the scarcity of specialisation within professions. So, trying to deduce that higher charges in a profession are necessarily the consequence of a lack of overseas practitioners is a difficult judgment to make. Many of the professions we are talking about are clinical professions, conducted, in the most part, in the National Health Service, where delays are the product, as we all know, of many factors, not just the availability of professionals, and where charges are very often irrelevant—they do not exist. I am afraid the idea that one can arrive at a conclusion about the necessity to bring overseas professionals into some of these clinical professions on the basis of delays and charges in the NHS is somewhat moonshine.

We need the other factors—workforce modelling, shortages in the occupational list, vacancy rates and all these other issues—to be there. We just need to make absolutely certain that they are there, and I hope that my noble friend on the Front Bench will be able to give us the assurance that we are looking for today to enable me to withdraw Amendment 5 in due course. I beg to move.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, said, I have added my name to the second of the amendments in this group. There are two parts to the Bill, as we know. One arises from the trade talks, where the Government may want regulators to talk to their opposite numbers in relevant third countries. The other, which is what we are looking at now, is about enabling—or maybe requesting—regulators to process overseas qualified people where there is deemed to be a shortage here. Unmet “needs” is the word used. That is where I and some of the regulators have some concerns.

In many sectors, such as nursing, it already happens. Structures are in place and there is no need for the Government to intervene. The powers are there, everything is fine at the moment. However, there are two serious questions that need answering. First, is there any danger that consumer interests are at risk if underqualified people practise here because the Government say, “We have not got enough of that particular profession”? I do not need to go into why that is a risk; it is fairly obvious.

Secondly, which the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, covered, is how the shortage is to be defined. He already referred to why high fees are not always an appropriate measure. Sometimes, there are high fees because there is an international shortage; the price is set on an international market and therefore bringing in more of that profession would not solve anything. Or will it be defined by users or consumers who need those services? Amendment 6 sets out some far more objective criteria, which is why I was happy to support it.

Since we are on this bit, I should raise the other concern of the Law Society, which was not raised earlier by the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering. It does not expect to be covered by Clauses 1 and 2, but were they to be applied to it, and should the SRA get involved in such discussions, the Law Society wonders whether this would jeopardise the perceived independence of the legal profession as seen abroad by foreign Bars. Clearly, the consultation is very important, but—I am not saying that it said this because it was high fees—I think it would have a concern if there appeared to be any interference by the Government that would in any way question the independence of the legal regulators, which I know is so important for our international reputation in the world of law. For the moment, the main issue is the definition of where there is unmet need and whether the assurances will cover what we have set out in Amendment 6.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness and to agree very substantially with what she said and of course, the noble Lord, who made a strong case. I, too, commend the Minister because, as we have indicated in previous groups and as my noble friend said, the Bill may have had a pause, but the Minister did not. He and his officials have worked hard in engaging with us and with those who will be affected by it.

Sovereign Defence Capability: Meggitt Takeover

Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town Excerpts

Wednesday 15th September 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

I know of the noble Lord’s campaign to raise awareness of the important work and value of private UK companies, but as I mentioned in my Answer to the noble Lord, Lord West, we value trade and investment into the United Kingdom. We believe in an open trading environment, and that is why the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, is wrong. We cannot just exist on an individual basis, not taking account of trade in the rest of world. We are proud to be one of the largest sources of inward investment in Europe, and long may that continue.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

My Lords, as others have said, we need a defence industry that is secure for jobs and the economy but also whose technology is secure from hostile hands. Given that, as the noble Baroness, Lady Wheatcroft, said, the assurances of jobs from Parker are for only a year, can the Minister indicate whether he considers that a more thorough assessment is needed? Also, had the new national security and investment regime been in place now, would the Meggitt takeover have been caught by the definition for mandatory notification?

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

The answer to the second part of the noble Baroness’s question is yes. On the first part, it is a quasi-judicial process, and the Secretary of State has not taken a decision on it, so I cannot go any further than what I have said so far.

European Union Touring Visas

Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town Excerpts

Tuesday 14th September 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

My noble friend might be right. If noble Lords cast their minds back even to when we were part of the free-movement regime, it was already difficult in some member states, particularly France—which is particularly awkward about these matters—for ski instructors and others to practise their professions. That was true under the old EU arrangements, so I suspect it would be similarly difficult now.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

My Lords, whether it is performers, their back-up teams, interpreters, ski instructors or battlefield guides, the Government simply forgot about citizens when they negotiated the Brexit deal. Indeed, had they negotiated a Brexit deal rather than an “exit at any price” deal and put citizens at the heart of it, these difficulties might never have happened. Can the Minister assure the House that real priority and urgency will be behind their efforts to put the future of these professionals at the heart of what they now do?

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

I am afraid that the noble Baroness is simply wrong in the first part of her question. We tried to negotiate an ambitious deal on recognition of different qualifications and movement with the European Union, and it rejected our proposals. On the second part of her question, I agree with her and we will now try to work with all the associations and individuals to improve the situation.

Future UK-EU Relationship on Professional and Business Services (EU Committee Report)

Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town Excerpts

Thursday 22nd July 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

My Lords, the sad story of this excellent report, so ably introduced by my noble friend Lady Donaghy, is that the Government failed to heed the clarion call to place our professional and business services centre stage in negotiations with the EU. That is hard to explain, given what a great foreign earner those services represent, the sheer numbers employed and the role that they play in servicing other business so that they too can trade and prosper. All those were mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Bottomley, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, my noble friends Lord Davies of Brixton and Lord Liddle and others.

The TCA focused on fishing and goods and, in the words of the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, rather ignored services, leaving them facing barriers to their continuation and growth. In particular, while the TCA provides a framework, as my noble friend Lord Davies of Brixton said, for mutual recognition of professional qualifications, this new system will, in the judgment of TheCityUK, take a long time to yield any meaningful results. I hope that the Government will hear the need for urgency in making progress on that vital aspect, as mentioned by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd.

While there are undoubtedly some positives in regard to legal services—a sector mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, and others—particularly on where UK lawyers can practise UK and international law under home title anywhere in the EU without requalification, such access is subject to national restrictions. Importantly, along with all professional and business services, including cultural services, the trade agreement provides little on the movement of people. That is one of the biggest losses for UK professional service providers in doing business in the EU.

Perhaps most worrying since the conclusion of the TCA is the absence of agreement on Lugano, about which I have tabled Written Questions, though I await responses from the Government. Perhaps the Minister can update the House as to why he thinks that the European Commission has concluded that it is

“not in a position to give its consent to invite the United Kingdom to accede to the Lugano Convention”

and tell us what steps the Government are taking to rectify that and mitigate the resulting difficulties.

There remains work to be done to improve our trading relationship with the EU over the ongoing provision of the UK’s professional and business services. TheCityUK has outlined its priorities, some covering financial services, which are beyond the scope of this report, but a number are germane to our debate, particularly over data adequacy—as mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord McNally—Lugano and the movement of people. However, TheCityUK’s major message to us is the most important: outstanding practical and implementation issues are unlikely to be solved

“until the political situation between the parties is heavily de-escalated”.

That is our plea to the Government. Can we tone down the language? Can we stop the playground name-calling and accusations of bad faith? Please can we not even think of triggering dispute mechanisms or other such macho devices? How can we possibly at this moment be setting ourselves on a collision course with the EU by threatening to suspend parts of the Brexit deal, which the Government have only just negotiated and signed, if the EU does not accede to our demands?

As the FT says today, the Command Paper

“represents a root-and-branch rewriting of the Brexit deal UK prime minister Boris Johnson agreed with the EU in October 2019”,

amounting to an attempt to tear up an international treaty—an attempt, in the view of the FT, that the EU was bound refuse. Indeed, I understand from the BBC website that Mrs von der Leyen has already this afternoon rejected the Prime Minister’s bid to renegotiate the protocol. That is not just important for the protocol, but how does it help our wider relationship with our vital partner, particularly the continuation of the business and professional services on which, as we have heard from all speakers, we are so dependent? Can we please heed the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, and look to the future and so keep our eye on the major prize? That is increased and growing trade in professional and business services with our nearest neighbour and our biggest single market—an objective that does not have to be at the expense of trade further afield.

We need better atmospherics to achieve the improvement in our relationships with the EU on the services that we are discussing today. They are vital for our economy, both in the direct benefit of these services and for all the other businesses that they support—goods, fishing, agriculture, academia. Everything that we do with the EU tends to depend on advice, legal advice, professional services and recruitment—all the ones that we are covering today, including, of course, accountancy. I hope that the noble Lord will offer some real assurances that the Government share our ambition in this regard to ensure that this sector of our economy continues to thrive, grow with the EU and help all the other bits of our economy and, similarly, trade with this biggest and nearest partner.

Professional Qualifications Bill [HL]

Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 22nd June 2021 Lords Chamber

In the light of these latest developments it is absolutely clear that Amendments 63 and 68, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, are necessary in principle. The content is of course already out of date, and I note from the Minister’s letter that there is no claim that the latest list is definitive—because apparently it is still being tested. We will need a final list on the face of this Bill before it leaves your Lordships’ House, because it is simply unacceptable for legislation to be uncertain as to who or what is within its scope. I beg to move.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

My Lords, it is nice to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes. Clearly, she and I were doing the same thing on Sunday afternoon; when everyone else was out enjoying the rain, we were sitting at our computers waiting for letters from the Minister. When I have finished speaking to Amendments 63 and 68, I am sure that, if he were to indicate the Government’s willingness in principle to accept them, the House would give him leave to give such an indication and save us from having to go through the whole group.

In respect of Amendments 45 and 46, respectively moved and tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, it is clearly right that an arm’s-length regulator, which now also includes the Legal Services Board, should not have the same legal requirements to provide regulators’ information to the assistance centre, and nor should it be caught by the other requirements that apply to front- line regulators.

As we have heard, 160 professions were originally caught by this legislation; as late as the Minister’s letter to me of 18 June, it was still 160 professions. The first time round, of course, it was the 57 varieties in the letter to the noble Baronesses, Lady Noakes and Lady Garden, on 24 May. As the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, said, even the new list is “indicative”, although we were not told that the first list was indicative. I received the Minister’s letter at 2.16 pm on Sunday afternoon with some amusement because, as the noble Baroness said, we now have 60 regulators and about 200 professions. As I think she indicated, you really could not make it up.

Legislation has been drafted without the department even knowing which bodies are covered. It has then had to correct or revise it quickly afterwards to add, for example, recognised supervisory bodies, because it has just realised that the Companies Act and the Statutory Auditors and Third Country Auditors Regulations include them. As we heard, the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales has been added. We had specifically been told on 5 June, and again as late as 18 June, that the ICAEW was not included; we now find that it is. As the Minister’s letter was not private, I shared a copy of it with the ICAEW. It emailed to say that

“it feels like government seem to be rushing through this legislation without having thought through the detail of the Bill and its consequences, and parliamentarians”—

I think that means us—

“are now having to try and fix this. For the list of regulators and professions affected by this Bill to have changed so substantially while the legislation is being scrutinised … does not help give certainty on such an important and wide-ranging legislative measure—a point hopefully the Minister would recognise.”

I mentioned the Legal Services Board, which is now included in the list when it was not before, but the list still lists the Law Society of England and Wales as the regulator of solicitors. I would have thought that it would be more appropriate for the Solicitors Regulation Authority to be listed. The SRA has written to me, to say:

“We would support the SRA being named on the face of the bill”.


It is rather surprised that the Law Society is mentioned. That was undoubtedly correct under the Legal Services Act 2007, but it should now be the SRA because it has recently been established as a legal entity. Clearly, even what we had on Sunday still needs correcting, and it needs correcting now, rather than at some point in the future.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, said, the Minister’s letter says that the Government are still testing the list, and will make it public only after that. That really is not sufficient. The Government should not only know which bodies will be covered but have consulted them prior to drafting the Bill. It is no good finding out now that new regulators have not had the chance to put their pennyworth in, and that their specific remit, structure and the way they work clearly cannot have been considered because they have not been consulted.

I think that the noble Baroness and I both agree that it is also not adequate, even when the list is finalised, simply to have it available somewhere in the ether once the Bill is enacted. How are professions regulated by these bodies, or indeed foreign professionals who might want to be authorised here, to know whether the Bill covers them and whether it covers a list of regulators? Saying that there is a list on GOV.UK is insufficient, because who would know to look there to see whether there was a list of regulators covered by the Bill?

This is a powerful Bill. It will enable a Minister to mandate a supposedly independent regulator to put certain processes in place—our Delegated Powers Committee calls it a Henry VIII power. These professions are regulated in law but supposedly with an arm’s-length approach, up till now, as to how they gain and retain their professional standing. A new law would give powers to Ministers over these professional regulators. How can it be possible that those regulators are not listed in the Bill? Of course it must be possible to add or subtract regulators as they change their titles or merge—the sort of thing that happens over time—but it cannot be right to add in a new regulator at the whim of a Minister with no by your leave from Parliament and no mention in legislation.

Amendment 63 would therefore add in a reference to a schedule listing the regulators covered by the Bill, and Amendment 68 comprises that proposed new schedule. As the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, suggested, given that it was a copy-and-paste, it is not now as accurate as I thought it was when I tabled the amendment. That is not my fault; the list was from the Minister’s original letter. Unless the Minister will now accept the amendment in principle, the amendment I will table on Report will be the corrected version. Perhaps by then the Minister will have been able to confirm that all statutory bodies covered by the Bill have been identified and consulted, and to provide us with a list of which of those 60 regulators do not already have the power to recognise overseas qualifications and therefore might not even need the Minister’s authorisation, as allowed for in the Bill. As I said, if the Minister will indicate now that he accepts this in principle, then I am sure that we can shortcut this.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, I have been a Member of a Parliament—either the Scottish Parliament or this Parliament—for nearly 18 years now. I cannot remember a government proposal for legislation that is so catch-all and which would have powers to amend primary legislation with whatever it wants, by whoever it wants, whenever it sees fit. For the Government not to know who the Bill will apply to while it goes through Parliament is unacceptable. Therefore, although I support all the amendments in the group, I also support the call for the Government to take their foot off the accelerator and pause, so that not just Parliament but the Government themselves can properly scrutinise who will be impacted by the Bill.

In many respects we have an indicative Bill, not an indicative list of bodies. We should not have indicative Bills presented to us. If the Government want to do this properly, there are well-established measures for presenting draft Bills. A draft Bill would probably have fleshed out all these aspects, and allowed those groups to indicate whether or not they will be part of the framework, whether they want to be part of it, or whether they desperately do not want to be. At least we would have known. When I say “we”, I want to be all-inclusive, and I include the Minister—he would have known as well.

It is not just a question of whether the Government know which regulators and regulated professions will be in the framework. The impact assessment also includes a number of those that will not be in the framework, which is equally important. Do the Government also know this list? Otherwise, there might be some horrible kind of purgatory, where some of these bodies do not know whether they are on the way to legislation, and so are in a holding pattern, or whether they will not be part of it.

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[Lord Grimstone of Boscobel (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for that. Surely this is why we are going to have the assistance centre and why we are going to require regulators to publish on their websites what it takes to become a member of their profession. I say to the noble Lord that an apprenticeship is a qualification, and if the requirement to become a farrier is that you have to be an apprentice, it is quite right that the farriers should put that on their website. It should say how one goes about being an apprentice; it should not be something known only to a favoured few. Boys or girls who wish to become a farrier should have a place to go and find out how to do it.

The Bill will open up, for the first time, for this list of professions—which nobody has pulled together and done the work on—whether you have to have qualifications or apprenticeships to do them. It will make that publicly accessible, and that will be a good thing in encouraging our people—young, middle-aged and old—to a route if they want to qualify and join these professions.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

I think I am in even greater despair now than I was before the Minister responded. Is this a “better regulation” Bill or is it about recognising incoming professionals from other countries, who can then have the right to practise here?

I find some of the Minister’s words extraordinary: he said that he felt uncomfortable, that he has apologised and that he has eaten humble pie. I thought he was leading up to saying, “And therefore we will, if you don’t mind, put your amendments to one side and come up with our own words”. I thought he was leading up to saying, “Actually, you’ve got it right”. Because he also said that—I am not very good at writing quickly, so I may not have got it quite right—as a Minister, he needs to know to whom the Bill applies. But so do the professions: the farriers, the pig farmers and the chicken farmers, abroad or here, need to know, because this is all about bringing people here from another country. It is not about our sixth-formers wanting to know, if they want to become a professional, whether they should do an apprenticeship, go to university or go to a college of further education. It is not about that.

I think it was this Government who set up the Better Regulation Task Force, or maybe it was ours. Perhaps my noble friend Lord Hunt will help me.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

We definitely had one of those.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

I am assured that we had one of those, so I cannot even blame this Government. But we do have a Better Regulation Task Force, so if there is no list of regulators at the moment, what on earth has that task force been doing in all the time that it existed under a Labour Government and for the 11 years that it has existed under a Conservative Government? That is exactly the sort of job it should be doing.

If we really need a list of regulators, so that young people can know whether to go to an apprenticeship or get their articles—that is what they used to be called, but I do not think they do those any more; the noble Lord, Lord Palmer would remember—I would understand that. But that is not what this Bill is about. It is about giving powers to a Minister to say to a regulator: “You will do something to accept people coming from another country to use the qualifications they have obtained”—whether by apprenticeship or by degree, or by sitting next to Harry or whatever—“to come here”, either because we have a skills shortage or because we are signing a deal with Australia, or wherever. That is what the Bill is about. It is not about helping our sixth-formers know where to get a job.

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[Lord Fox (LD)]

I am grateful for the speeches we have heard so far. I am a cosignatory to this amendment and I would like to associate myself completely with the comments of the noble Lords, Lord Hunt and Lord Patel. However, if they will excuse me, I would like to single out the comments of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, which were a clear, clarion call as to what we need to do with this clause: take it out. If we do not, we will let a Bill leave your Lordships’ House with so much power vested in the Minister and the department.

We are still struggling with what this Bill is for. If, as the Minister says, the first four clauses are its beating heart, then if things change, these issues can be picked up in primary legislation. Secretary of State Fox was very clear: trade deals will be brought to Parliament and debated as primary legislation. If and when the Government renege on that, perhaps it would be a problem of their own creating, but to leave this Henry VIII clause in the Bill is to pass too much untrammelled power going forward. I am sure that every department wants that ability not to have to worry about what Parliament says when it is making regulations and primary legislation, but your Lordships are here to stand up against things like that. We should remember the words of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, as we move forward to Report.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Hunt referred to “unease” about the Bill. I would put it slightly stronger: the “worry” about the Bill is threefold. First, as we have been hearing, it is badly thought out, badly drafted and not subject to proper consultation. Secondly, it is powerful: it allows statutory bodies—ones we thought autonomous —to have their roles, structures and working practices altered, not at their request to a Minister but to comply with government policy. Thirdly, as we have just been hearing, these changes to statutory bodies will be imposed by secondary legislation.

Hence, it is entirely legitimate to ask questions about Clause 13. Again, it is about whether there are two parts to the Bill. I have been focused on the idea that the Bill is about recognising international qualifications, but we are hearing from the various trade talks that the Government will indeed want to add professional services into the mix. As we have said before, this will often be really welcome and will be prioritised, I hope, in some of the trade talks—but only where it is judged good for our professions and not where it is imposed in a deal for something else.

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The other thing which puzzles me is that the Bill talks about the consent of “a” Minister of the Crown, so it is not necessarily the Welsh Minister or a Minister who knows anything at all about Wales. It seems it could be any passing Minister who has a few minutes to spare, regardless of his or her Welsh knowledge. I do not know whether that is how the Government intend the legislation to read, but that is how I read it. This really is unnecessary, for all the good reasons that have already been said. These sections should be withdrawn. We need to retain the friendly regard and respect which the nations of the UK should have, one towards another. As my noble friend Lady Randerson said, there should be no right to override the Welsh Assembly in these matters.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

My Lords, I really do not want to add to what has been said because it is slightly strange that the UK Government will have to consent to regulations made by a Welsh Minister. I am sure the Minister will say, “But the Welsh Government saw this and did not object.” Can she tell us exactly what discussions took place with the Welsh Government, and what assurances they were offered if they did nod it through, which I think is unlikely? What assurances were they given to allay their fears about it?

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[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister and to noble Lords who have taken part in this debate. The Minister is an eternal optimist and I liked his description of the Bill as a sunrise Bill. I say at once that I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Fox, that a sunset clause is not to be desired. The aim is to reach some consensus on the way forward. My reading is that the Minister is not going to get the Bill through at the moment, as it will be heavily amended on Report. This is a House of Lords starter Bill so the Parliament Act does not apply, and—

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

What?

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

No, I do not think that it applies to Lords starters; it applies to Commons starters.

Rather than just repeating the reasons why the Government need the clauses as they are, I hope they will start to negotiate because that is the way to get through this. There are ways in which the Bill can be amended to modify the executive provisions, but the Government have to be prepared to move. I thought the noble Lord, Lord Patel, was very wise in repeating to the Minister the wise words of his own better regulation advice on where sunset clauses can be appropriate. My noble friend Lady Blake asked where there will be a review mechanism at all if there is no sunset point.

Ultimately, it seems that we have reached a crunch position where the House is unhappy and will vote to take chunks out of the Bill, one way or another, unless we can reach a satisfactory solution. Clearly, the Bill is a Lords starter for one reason: it is a Bill on which we should be able to come together because at heart we all want to see professional qualifications in this country maintaining independence, a very high standard and interchangeability with other countries, where that is appropriate. Although noble Lords may have some doubts about this Bill, I do not think there is any argument about the intent of where the Government seek to go. We now need to see movement from the Government. Having said that, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

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Moved by

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

60B: After Clause 15, insert the following new Clause—
“Saving: autonomy of regulators
Nothing in this Act affects the autonomy of regulators to act in the interests of their profession, including but not limited to the ability to—(a) set and maintain professional standards.(b) set requirements to practise a profession. (c) determine who is fit to practise.(d) set requirements for having insurance. (e) set the training requirements (including requirements about gaining experience).(f) determine appropriate levels of flexibility in assessment practices;(g) determine to make a regulator recognition agreement.”

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

I apologise for my response during my noble friend Lord Hunt’s comments. Is it not wonderful that you learn something new every day? I had not realised that a Lords starter is not subject to the Parliament Act. I was just preparing something for a meeting I have tomorrow saying how the Bill was a Lords starter because that is normal for a noncontentious Bill. That is presumably why noncontentious Bills are put here.

However, with a final flourish, Amendment 60B is in my name and those of the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, and the noble Lords, Lord Lansley and Lord Fox. It basically sums up the deep concerns we share about the Bill’s potential to undermine the independent standard-setting and public interest duties of what we have seen as autonomous regulators. As the Minister will recognise, everything in this amendment is what he promised in Committee. I am not suggesting that the department made up its position as the Bill went along. In this amendment we have simply brought things together to make the Government’s position, as the Minister has stated, much clearer and easy to read, so because of that, I think the Minister will have no issue at all with the amendment and will probably want to accept it.

As the amendment is all things that the Minister has been saying, I do not propose to rehearse all the arguments—he is familiar with all of them—save to say that a Bill to compel regulators either to enter negotiations with an overseas regulator or put in place a process for recognising the qualifications of applicants trained abroad to fulfil a promise made by the Government in a trade deal or to fill a skills shortage defined by a Minister is not compatible with a regulator’s independence if it is carried out by diktat rather than at the regulator’s request. I completely understand that if there is a deal and particular professions would like to have the mutual recognition of qualifications, they may find they do not have the powers and may come to the Minister saying “Look, our statute does not allow for it. Please can you do the necessary?” I quite understand that that power might need to exist but it should come from them, not from the imposition of the Minister.

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[Lord Grimstone of Boscobel (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter of Kentish Town, for her amendment, which sets out the autonomy of regulators to act in the interests of their profession. I note that the amendment is supported by my noble friend Lady Noakes and others. Of course, I commend their commitment to upholding regulator autonomy, and it will come as no surprise that I support their intent here. I was told before I joined your Lordships’ House that understanding the mood of the House was an important requisite if a Minister was to have a chance of even modest success in his role. I do not think that anybody who has listened to our debates on this matter could be in any doubt about the mood of the Committee on this topic.

I spoke at length on regulator autonomy on days one and two of Committee, saying, in particular, that regulatory autonomy is, and has always been, a priority in this Bill. Throughout the Bill’s development and following its introduction, the Government have engaged closely with a wide range of regulators—even the newly discovered ones—to make sure that their autonomy is upheld throughout the Bill. We will of course continue to do so, not just during the Bill’s passage but in its implementation. Subject to the usual channels, I believe that we may now have time available to us before the Bill moves to Report stage to make sure that process is fully and conclusively completed.

This is why of course we listened even before the Bill started its passage through the House, and tabled our amendments to Clause 1: to ensure, in that case, regulatory autonomy over decisions about who practises a profession and flexibility in assessment practices, in line with the rigorous standards set by regulators. I think noble Lords will recognise now that the overall effect of Clause 1, as amended, will be to ensure that regulators can use a full range of approaches to make their determinations about knowledge and skills, and it preserves their ability to set further conditions, such as those set out in the amendment. I am pleased that, through discussion, we were able to get both the General Medical Council and the Nursing and Midwifery Council to welcome this. The proposed new clause would also specify that regulators are able to determine whether to make a regulator recognition agreement. Perhaps I may humbly say that Clause 4 is already the means of achieving this.

Clause 3 ensures that, where the UK has international agreements on the recognition of professional qualifications, these can be implemented. The principle of autonomy will be a key priority in reaching these agreements. Of course, I understand the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Purvis of Tweed, that there will be a number of future free trade agreements that will require primary legislation to implement them. Equally, there may be some, for example the Swiss mobility agreement—not a full free trade agreement but one that acts within the spirit of the Bill—which may not need primary legislation. That is why it has been important to have this flexibility.

Agreements under Clause 4 are entirely regulator-led. The appropriate national authority may grant regulators the power only to enter into agreements, not to dictate what agreements to enter into. It is for the regulator to decide whether it wishes to enter into a recognition agreement with its counterparts overseas, and the terms of any agreement. I hope that I have conveyed through this, and my previous comments, that the Bill protects and values the autonomy of regulators. But of course, I go back to my earlier comments: the strength of feeling expressed by Members of this House has not gone unheard. I have listened carefully to the points made and I will continue to consider the importance of regulatory autonomy and to ensure that this is respected.

I would still highlight that the Bill, as drafted and amended by the Government, does give powers to regulators where they need them. If the Bill can be improved through scrutiny, who would not want it to be? However, the Bill is already consistent with the intended effects of the amendment, so I suggest that there is no need for an additional clause. I therefore ask that this amendment be withdrawn.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord and the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, for their support for this. If I have understood the Minister correctly, he said, “Don’t worry about it because it’s all in the Bill, so it isn’t necessary”. But if it is all in the Bill, there is no harm in it. Given the concerns that we have had, I see nothing wrong with the reassurance, as I mentioned at an earlier stage. Sometimes, when things are tested, perhaps in courts afterwards, a very clear statement of intent and reassurance can work wonders—even more than a ministerial statement from the Dispatch Box. Therefore, it would not be right to say that it is not needed. If it is an extra bit, that seems to me a welcome addition.

However, I am very grateful to the Minister for saying that he has listened to everything we have said and will think about this. I will give away a small secret, just within these four walls: there is no date, as yet, in July for Report, so it may well be that we have until September, which should give the Ministers and their drafters plenty of time. It would obviously be better if any amendments that we agree with could come in their names, because they tend to be drafted better than ours, and it is also much easier to have a discussion and agree.

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[Baroness Noakes (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Palmer of Childs Hill, has tabled these amendments, which I know were suggested by the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales, so I felt somewhat obligated to speak on the amendment. I know that the ICAEW is pretty keen to be included in the Bill’s scope. As the noble Lord explained, its wish has been granted to some extent, but only for certain aspects where it regulates professions. The noble Lord’s amendments would actually go considerably further by making chartered accountancy a regulated profession. Amendment 64 names the ICAEW as the “chartered accountancy regulator”, thus relegating all the other chartered accountancy bodies to also-rans. If the noble Lord was even thinking about pressing his amendment, I would strongly oppose it. I hope that my noble friend the Minister will resist it.

The inclusion of chartered accountancy is not logical. The ICAEW already enters into mutual recognition agreements, so Clauses 3 and 4 would have no relevance whatever. I cannot believe that the Government would ever make a determination under Clause 2 that there is a problem with meeting a demand for accountants’ services. There is no shortage of accountants.

The ICAEW’s rather grandiose briefing to me said that it wanted to be in the Bill so that there could be

“a debate on the role of the profession in shaping global business practice, reporting and governance”.

In other words, the ICAEW wants to be seen as important. Legislation should not be used to support the egos of anybody, let alone professional bodies.

Right at the end of his remarks, the noble Lord, Lord Palmer of Childs Hill, raised whether the provision of accountancy and tax advisory services should be regulated. That is pure protectionism and not something I would ever support, even for my own profession of accountancy. I know that the noble Lord will not press his amendments, but if he does I hope that my noble friend the Minister will strongly resist them.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

My Lords, my sister is not a chartered accountant, but she is an accountant. I do not know whether that is an interest to declare, but I should note that.

Unsurprisingly, I have a lot of sympathy with what the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, said. In fact, when the noble Lord first raised the possibility of this with me, I was really interested, but we were both quite surprised that somebody actually wanted to be regulated. As someone who has worked very much on the consumer side, I have tried to get people regulated and on the whole they have resisted. However, that falls apart, because we have now discovered in the letter that the ICAEW will be there.

Earlier, I read out the note that I had had from the ICAEW as a result of the Minister’s letter on Sunday, saying that it seemed as if the Government were “rushing through the legislation”. I did not quote this, but I will say it now:

“Between this Bill’s conclusion in the House of Lords and it beginning to go through the lower chamber, it is vital that BEIS take stock of this legislation, review its intended – and unintended – consequences, and engage with those regulators and professional bodies in scope to iron out any remaining concerns.”


As I said on the previous group, I hope that we will use the time between now and Report, rather than between now and when the Bill arrives in the other House, but it sounds as though the ICAEW and the other accountancy bodies have not yet had a discussion with departmental officials. I hope that that can be put in hand. I hope the Minister will be able to confirm, although maybe not at this moment, that those meetings have taken place so that, as the ICAEW says, any intended or unintended consequences are fully understood and any problems can be ironed out. I look forward to hearing from the Minister that that will take place.

[Lord Grimstone of Boscobel (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Palmer of Childs Hill, for his amendments. I am grateful for the opportunity to clarify the Government’s thinking on whether the chartered accountancy profession is one to which the Bill applies, as well as the situation in respect of other chartered professions. I hope that noble Lords have noted, as I have responded to this, that we have been listening to their concerns and that we are looking to engage and make improvements where we can. I can confirm to the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, that officials are already in discussion with the ICAEW.

As a short digression, I have to say that it is nice to hear regulators are now clamouring to join the bandwagon of this Bill. I hope that marks a turning point for us. I will be going home with a spring in my step this evening, having heard that.

I should begin by acknowledging that the UK’s chartered accountancy bodies set the highest standards with their qualifications and require continuous professional development, rightly. As a result, the UK’s accounting sector is highly respected and valued both domestically and across the world. We are rightly proud of it.

I would also like to highlight that, as we have heard from noble Lords, the ICAEW is a regulator to which the Bill applies, by virtue of its role as a regulator of auditors, insolvency practitioners and some other distinct specialisms. The professional activity of audit is regulated in statute by the ICAEW and the other recognised supervisory bodies for audit, all overseen by the Financial Reporting Council. We continue to deepen our understanding of these relationships as a result of the mapping work that I described much earlier today.

One of the objectives of this Bill is to revoke the current EU-derived system for recognising professional qualifications and experience gained overseas. We are taking away this prescriptive system and leaving it to our autonomous regulators to decide what recognition arrangements they require. If our regulators need help to create recognition routes to meet demand, or to agree reciprocal agreements with overseas counterparts, we can use the powers in this Bill to give them what they need.

Chartered titles are, in general, a form of self-regulation. Chartered accountancy is not a profession regulated in law, and there are no statutory impediments to the chartered bodies having whichever international recognition routes they deem appropriate. So there is simply no need for government intervention under this Bill to help chartered bodies set up recognition routes or international recognition arrangements for professional activities not regulated in law. Indeed, the ICAEW already has many overseas members and international agreements relating to accountancy. Therefore, the profession of chartered accountancy does not need to be included among those professions to which the Bill applies.

This is true of all voluntarily regulated professions. Professional bodies for those professions continue to reign with autonomy over their unilateral recognition routes and over the formation of the content of recognition agreements with overseas counterparts. So, I repeat: they do not need any help under the powers of this Bill. I hope that the noble Lord is reassured by this explanation, and I ask that he withdraw the amendment.

We are now reaching the end of the 27th grouping, which marks the end of the Committee stage for this Bill. I would like to express my sincere thanks to all noble Lords for their excellent and insightful contributions. I think it is fair to say that Ministers and officials have learned things from these insightful contributions. I will be reflecting on all the points made. If the noble Baroness would like to tell me where she will be for her summer holiday, I will make sure that the letters are delivered to her expeditiously.

I look forward to continuing to discuss this Bill with noble Lords. I will hold further round tables; I, and officials, will meet further with regulators; I will meet with the devolved Administrations; and I will do this before we return for Report.

Professional Qualifications Bill [HL]

Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 14th June 2021 Lords Chamber

I wonder why the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, feels that amending secondary legislation is necessary. If there is no existing statutory legislation that is the parent Act of the subordinate legislation for these regulators, then we should not be creating that legislation by secondary legislation. We should look at the original Act, and not simply support regulation-amending provisions. Fundamentally, while we can have many concerns about the operation of these regulations, their breadth, the impact they could have on the regulators and those who are applying to them, this is about honouring a commitment given by this Government during the passage of the Trade Bill. It is stated on the record in Hansard, and I hope the Minister will reaffirm that, and have discussions about removing this clause.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

My Lords, as we have heard, Clause 3 gives powers to Ministers to do all sorts of things, but particularly over professional regulators to implement what the Government have negotiated with a third country as part of a trade deal. We are not talking about participation in negotiations on a trade deal, but when a trade deal is done, Clause 3 would give Ministers powers to make such provision as they think necessary to implement any international recognition agreement.

Basically, it states that, where the Government have agreed that opening up a particular UK profession to people qualified in that third country, Ministers can tell a supposedly independent regulator—if I understood what the Minister said earlier—simply to put in place a process for assessing any applicants. However, it goes much further than that, as the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, and others have said. It could even be to accept such applications, not simply to have process by which they would consider applications. Why is this power needed? Either the regulator already has the power to have such a process to consider applications so that it can judge the qualifications, experience, fitness to practice and general bone fides of applicants, in which case this power is not needed, or it lacks the power and does not want it because if it wanted such a process, it would have put it in place.

Not everyone opened their emails at 5 pm yesterday, but I did, and I had a letter from the Minister. One of the questions we have been asking—and which he helpfully promised to answer—was how many regulators are we discussing anyway, under the 60 regulators who do not already have the powers to accept or consider applicants from third countries to practice here. He named three, meaning that we may be doing this for just three regulators. One is the Health and Safety Executive, another the Teaching Regulation Authority, and the third is the Security Industry Authority, which I think regulates bouncers. Someone who knows about this can tell me if I got that right—I see that the Minister confirms it. So this Bill will enable a regulator which regulates our bouncers to take applicants from third countries with which we have done a trade deal, so that their bouncers can come and operate at our nightclubs, which are closed at the moment because of Covid. I thought I should share with colleagues that we are possibly talking about three regulators who do not have the power, and that one probably does not want it anyway. If they can already consider applicants, then this seems to go further than saying that you need a process in place, and seems possibly to say, “You will accept these applicants,” whom I am sure were already regulated in their own countries. Nevertheless, it seems to require regulators to accept them, not just to put a process in place.

My noble friend Lord Hunt asked why should a Minister be able to override what a statutory regulator—a supposedly autonomous regulator set up in law to protect the public and maintain standards—and establish a new route against its wishes? If the regulator is happy, everything is hunky-dory, and we do not need this power anyway. The Government have said that Clause 3 is a more proportionate method to implement mutual recognition agreements, but they have failed to tell us which trade deals being considered will have a mutual recognition agreement and why regulator-to-regulator side agreements are not satisfactory. The Minister’s letter—for those of your Lordships who did not open their emails at 5 pm yesterday, and incidentally I am impressed that the Minister was there to press send at that time—to the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, says that if an MRA is agreed and approved by the trade agreement,

“it may need to be implemented in law”.

However, the Minister in that letter gave no example of why it would need to be implemented in law, or what type of MRA that is. Perhaps he can now spell out the circumstances in which an MRA would need to be implemented in law in the way envisaged in Clause 3.

I am anyway still bemused about why—given that the Government have said that, in their negotiations with other countries, it is for the autonomous regulator to determine who practises a profession—a Minister might need to instruct a regulator in law to set up a route for negotiations and recognition.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, and others said, and as the Delegated Powers Committee wrote, the Government have failed to satisfy us that Clause 3 is needed at all, and—as Amendment 56 tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, emphasises—have failed to explain why, should something along these lines even be needed, it should enable primary legislation to be implemented by statutory instrument. Clause 3 states that the Government—or any of the devolved Governments—can use regulations to implement any international recognition agreement, which means that they could use it, as others have said, to authorise Brazilian vets, Japanese bouncers or Australian teachers to work here without our regulators being the ones to decide that. It certainly seems to go beyond simply having a process in place, which is the point on which I wish to press the Minister. Earlier he said that it was all about making sure there is a process in place. If I have not understood correctly, I am looking forward to the Minister’s explanation of why this is needed.

[The Minister of State, Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and Department for International Trade (Lord Grimstone of Boscobel) (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Lansley for his amendment to Clause 13, which limits the regulation-making power of Clause 3, and I note that the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, intends to oppose Clause 13 standing part of the Bill and that the noble Lords, Lord Fox, Lord Trees and Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, and my noble friend Lady Noakes intend to oppose that Clause 3 stand part of the Bill. I hope to provide noble Lords with the assurances they are seeking, but I have listened carefully to the points made during the debate and know that I may have an uphill task ahead of me on some of these matters. I will of course be reflecting on that after this debate.

Before I turn to my noble friend Lord Lansley’s amendments to Clause 13, it would be helpful to consider them in the context of Clause 3. I will therefore outline the rationale for Clause 3. Before I do that, I apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Patel, if letters to him have been misdirected—although he may be grateful not to have received them at 5 o’clock yesterday afternoon—and I will of course ensure that that does not happen again. In answer to the noble Lord, Lord Purvis of Tweed, I will of course research what previous Trade Secretaries have said on matters germane to the Bill.

Let me again outline the rationale for Clause 3. I think it is common ground that international agreements on professional qualifications can be beneficial in reducing non-tariff barriers to trade by supporting UK trade in services and helping professionals to provide services abroad. I still believe that Clause 3 is important to ensure that the UK can meet its international obligations by allowing national authorities to implement those parts of international agreements that relate to professional qualifications.

As I have described before, what is implemented under this power will be subject to the outcome of negotiations. It is the case that for many trade partners, we are likely to agree the standard model of recognition of professional qualifications: a mutual recognition agreement framework. Perhaps in answer to my noble friend Lady McIntosh’s fears about reciprocity, I think the clue is in the name: these are mutual recognition agreements. Under these frameworks, the parties to the deal encourage their regulators to negotiate and agree recognition arrangements, but—and this is the key point—with no obligation that they do. It is up to the regulators to decide whether to agree a recognition agreement and to propose its terms. This takes time. Sometimes, once a mutual recognition agreement is agreed and approved under the FTA’s governance processes, it can be annexed to the FTA itself, and then it may require implementation by the Government, often—this is the reality—years after the FTA was actually agreed. That is one of the answers to the noble Lord, Lord Purvis of Tweed, as to why sunset clauses do not really work in those circumstances.

With other select trade partners, the Government may look to agree more ambitious provisions for the recognition of professional qualifications. An example of this is the excellent deal recently agreed with the EEA EFTA states, Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein, and I am happy to use it as an example, as requested the noble Lord, Lord Fox. This agreement includes a framework that ensures that there will be a route to recognition for UK professional qualifications in the EEA EFTA states and vice versa, but, as I have stressed previously, this is a route to recognition, it is not an obligation to recognise and it does not affect the ability of national authorities or regulators to set and maintain professional standards.

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[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD) [V]]

My Lords, in the Minister’s letter to the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, yesterday—which I hope has been circulated to all those who have been participating in the Committee, as the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, indicated—the Minister cited the reason for moving away from what he termed the “prescriptive and unpopular” EU-derived system of mutual recognition across members. The next sentence says:

“But it did at least give all regulators [Inaudible] a means to establish international recognition routes with EU member states.”


The Government say that it was “prescriptive and unpopular”, so they want to do exactly the same. However, there is not the same kind of protections on the regulators at the moment for their operational independence if they decide not to enter into an agreement. There will be substantially good reasons why they may not want to, and they were outlined by the GMC on its response to the Government’s consultation on the CPTPP.

The GMC has indicated that the approach of the UK regulators in many areas has gone beyond simply looking at the areas listed by the Government in this Bill, which we debated at our first Committee sitting. The regulators on health and certain other areas look at the broad fitness to practise, the background education and the ability to verify the educational standards in country of that applicant. Unless they are satisfied with that broad range of all the other areas, they do not wish to have mutual recognition. However, this is where the problem arises: in the future, it might be desirable that we have mutual recognition in professions with applicants from a certain country, but not yet. It should be up to the regulator and there should be independence when making the decision that a country’s standards on the education and training route for that applicant were not sufficient to meet UK standards.

At the moment, there is insufficient protection in Clause 4, because, as the Minister keeps reminding us, it is purely enabling, and could be completely undermined by Clause 3. The powers in Clause 3 can, in effect, force the regulator to move. It is not simply the slightly benign word that the Minister used in his letter— to “encourage”. Perhaps I am alone in being slightly cynical, but whenever I hear the Government say that they want to encourage someone, then that someone should be worried. It is not simply about encouragement, however. Clause 3 allows for that regulator to move to start the process of a mutual recognition agreement.

There is another reason why I think this probing amendment is justified, and I hope that the Minister can offer the reassurance that the noble Baroness seeks. The Government do not seem to know what the problem is in regard to many of the regulators yet, but they want an answer to them all under this. This comes at a great cost, because this Bill, as the impact assessment indicated, may well cost up to £42 million. These costs are passed on to the applicants. The Alice in Wonderland nature of it is that the Bill’s stated purpose is to reduce the fees for those applicants. However, it is the regulators who want to avoid a situation where they are forced through an MRA agreement to have a fee system imposed on them by the Government. That is why the justification for the voluntary nature of it is very strong. If the Minister were able to say that he would consider adding to Clause 4, which offers the kind of reassurance in statute that would be required, we would be more amenable to be assuaged.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

My Lords, I seek the Committee’s indulgence—I did not want to keep popping up in the last group—because there were some unanswered questions which I had posed. I am sure that more letters will come, but I asked the Minister to make it absolutely clear that Clause 3 was talking about more than just a regulator setting up a process and possibly accepting applicants. Perhaps he could write about that, because he went on to say that nobody objected to the new EFTA agreement, but that is only about a process. There is a big difference between asking a regulator to put a process in place and telling them what the outcome has to be.

Regarding this amendment, as the noble Lord, Lord Fox, said on the last group, mutual recognition agreements between willing partners are to be welcomed. They work and we like them. It is about professional movement and all the things that we are in favour of. Clearly, if they require a legal basis, then it is helpful for that basis to exist. However, I need some examples, even if no one else does, of what legal basis would be needed for a mutual recognition agreement. I quoted in the earlier group the letter to the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, which said that an MRI may need to be implemented in law, yet we have had no examples of what type of issues would need to be so implemented; that is, going beyond what a regulator can do at the moment. Perhaps either now or in correspondence, we could have some examples of that.

Amendment 30 must be right, because surely it is not for a Minister to require in law—it goes much further than encouragement, as the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, said—for a regulator to enter negotiations with another overseas regulator against its will. We are not talking about when it wants to do it. We are telling it when it does not want to do it that it must. This needs some justification by the Minister.

[Lord Grimstone of Boscobel (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Noakes for this amendment to Clause 4. It is worth reminding ourselves of the essential difference between Clause 3 and Clause 4. Clause 3 provides a power for the Government to implement international agreements, including the professional qualification elements of free trade agreements and bespoke agreements on professional qualifications. These are agreed between the UK Government and international trade partners. Clause 4 provides a power for national authorities to authorise regulators to enter regulator recognition agreements. These are often bilateral agreements between UK regulators and their counterparts in other countries on professional qualifications that make it easier for professionals to obtain recognition in their respective jurisdictions. I think the comments made by the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, referred mainly to Clause 3, when she looked at the impact assessment, rather than Clause 4, which of course is the subject of this amendment. Also, it is always a pleasure to hear from the noble Lord, Lord Davies. I welcome his comments.

I agree with the sentiment behind my noble friend’s amendment. Regulators must continue to have the ability to act in the best interests of their professions and the consumers of professional services. Clause 4 as introduced—I say this categorically—cannot be used to compel regulators to enter into reciprocal recognition agreements. It can only authorise them to do so, not oblige or compel. No circumstances can change this. I hope that reassures the noble Lord, Lord Purvis of Tweed, and others. It is not the Government’s policy to force regulators to enter into regulator recognition agreements. The decision to enter such an agreement must sit squarely with the regulators themselves. They are best placed to determine which recognition agreements would be most beneficial and to decide the terms of any agreements which they may enter.

I am sure that your Lordships recognise the value of recognition agreements and the importance of their creation being demand-led, regulator-led processes. Therefore, while I agree with the sentiment behind the amendment tabled by my noble friend Lady Noakes, I believe that the clause as drafted meets the objectives of it. With this reassurance, I hope that my noble friend feels able to withdraw her amendment.

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Moved by

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

31: Clause 4, page 3, line 36, after “qualifications” insert “approved by the regulator of the regulated profession”

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

My Lords, Amendment 31 in a way continues what the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, and others, have just touched on. It seeks to answer a concern raised particularly by the British Dental Association and mentioned by others.

The amendment, along with Amendment 32 in the name of the noble Baroness, is to strengthen Clause 4 to make it absolutely certain that where a domestic—UK—regulator is looking to recognise professional qualifications, experience or whatever, this would apply only to qualifications which had been approved by the regulator of that third country. This is important because in some countries not all educational institutions or award-giving bodies may be fully accredited by the national regulator, although they may look good on paper. There may be institutions giving out qualifications, but those qualifications are not recognised by the national regulator. It is vital that qualifications issued by an unaccredited institution abroad are not expected to be accepted here.

Amendments 31 and 32 would ensure that a qualification which had been approved by the appropriate regulator in the other country, rather than just having been awarded within its territory, is what would be considered by our regulators here. Without this amendment, a qualification from an awarding organisation outwith the remit of the parity regulator might be thought acceptable in the mutual recognition agreement. I beg to move.

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[Lord Grimstone of Boscobel (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Hayter of Kentish Town and Lady Randerson, and my noble friends Lady Noakes and Lord Moylan for these amendments. I shall begin by addressing Amendments 31 and 32.

The amendment tabled by my noble friend Lady Noakes would limit qualifications recognised in recognition agreements to qualifications approved by the overseas regulator, while the amendment proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter of Kentish Town, would limit the qualifications involved in recognition agreements to those approved by the UK regulator. On the face of it, these amendments seem reasonable. However, they would have no practical effect. Regulations under Clause 4 would authorise the regulator to enter into an agreement with an overseas regulator of a corresponding profession which carries out functions relating to regulating a profession. Logically, a regulator would enter into only an agreement which concerned those professionals whose qualifications and experience had been recognised by that overseas regulator. It is also true that the UK regulator would agree, as part of a recognition agreement, to recognise only those qualifications which meet UK standards. Given that, I humbly suggest that these amendments are unnecessary. They simply reflect what would happen in practice, and indeed what happens now, for regulators that can already enter into such agreements. I therefore ask the noble Baronesses to withdraw or not move their amendments.

The amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, would require the Government and the devolved Administrations to consult higher education institutions, training providers and other bodies before regulations are laid under Clause 4. I have already spoken about engagement, including in response to previous amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, so I will not rehearse those points again in full. However, I reassure her that my officials are working closely with the Department for Education to engage with a range of training providers.

The key point in relation to this amendment is that the regulator recognition agreements envisaged by Clause 4 will be regulator-led. The decisions will be for them; Clause 4 merely authorises them to enter into agreements. Of course, in considering and progressing recognition agreements, regulators will naturally want to engage with education providers and many others. I think, therefore, that the answer to the noble Baronesses, Lady Randerson and Lady Finlay of Llandaff, is that the Government do not need to get between the regulators and education providers in this matter. Indeed, if the Government did get between those two sides, they would risk being seen as seeking to limit regulators’ autonomy, to which I know we have all been paying so much attention.

Regulators will also want to work with national authorities, which themselves already work closely with a wide range of education and training providers, so I think that the amendment is unnecessary. Further, as my noble friend Lady Fraser of Craigmaddie has helpfully confirmed, this engagement already happens naturally, as one would expect it to. I hope that this reassures the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, and I ask her not to move her amendment.

I thank my noble friend Lord Moylan for his support of Clause 4 at Second Reading and I appreciate his interest in regulator recognition agreements. His amendment seeks to require regulators to report annually on the status of recognition agreement negotiations, to publish criteria for the initiation of negotiations, and to establish a process to allow for consultation within their sector. I appreciate the intention behind my noble friend’s amendment and I too am keen to support the development of recognition arrangements wherever I can. However, I think that placing these legal obligations on regulators is unnecessary.

First, regulators are a varied group and not all of them may wish to enter into recognition agreements, so requiring them all to publish criteria for the initiation of negotiations and to establish a process to allow for consultation within their sector seems burdensome. Secondly, it is our experience that the regulators one might expect to be active in international discussions already provide updates on recognition agreements and consult routinely on opportunities with their professions and other interested parties. Legislation to enforce this seems unnecessary.

We have spoken at length about regulator autonomy. I hope I have been clear throughout that we must trust regulators to act in the interests of their profession and to determine which recognition agreements are beneficial. I therefore ask my noble friend not to move his amendment.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Davies of Brixton merely agrees with the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, but I am actually going to defer to her. It is clear that her amendment is superior to mine. I did not use the term “UK” in mine and I understand the implication of that. It was drafted slightly sloppily, and for that I apologise.

The Minister says that the amendment is not necessary because Clause 4(2) states that it is for regulators to regulate agreements between regulators, as well as dealing with the recognition of qualifications. In a sense, therefore, you have go in through one to get to the other. The issue raised in the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, perhaps goes back more to Clause 3, which covered whether anything is ever going to be asked of a regulator, not just in a regulator-to-regulator agreement but when the Government ask it to do that as part of a trade deal, where we may still actually need it. I think that the implication—the real meat of it—is still needed. I know that her drafting is brilliant, but perhaps we need it in Clause 3. However, we can look at that.

I want to make one more comment arising out of the interesting issue raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Fraser. She mentioned that some of the overseas training is valuable; one might say almost that it is too valuable to some of our education establishments because it is keeping them going. But what comes out at the end does not stay with us and is not filling the skills gap. The noble Lord, Lord Trees, who is not here, has told me that it is much the same for vets. We are training an awful lot of overseas vets, and I think he said that something like 40% of them then leave because they get very high-quality training, but unfortunately do not stay to be vets here. I know that that is more about the earlier issue on skills, but it is one to bear in mind.

For the moment, and again with apologies for my rather poor drafting, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 31 withdrawn.

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[Lord Fox (LD)]

My Lords, we are indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, for opposing that this clause stand part. The way in which he set out the issues around delegated powers was excellent. I have nothing to add, but I would like to associate myself with what he said. His point about the severity of the sanction of a DPRRC report is very well made. I have tried to make in different ways. I think we will all be waiting to see how the Government react in legislative terms.

The term “encouragement” has come up and, clearly, Clause 4 is the encouraging end of a continuum that goes through “recommendation” and ends up in “compulsion”. Here, I come back to the question that my noble friend Lord Purvis asked when we were debating Amendment 30. The Minister confirmed that Clause 4 is voluntary, which we were all grateful for, but omitted to respond to my noble friend’s question about whether Clause 3 has the power to override Clause 4 and move that encouragement further down the continuum towards compulsion. Rather than ask it that way around, let us ask it the other way around. Are there any circumstances in which Clause 3 can be used? In other words, would the Minister rule out that Clause 3 can ever be used to compel regulators to do things as a result of Clause 4?

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

My Lords, the Government need to justify why this clause is in the Bill. What would happen if it were not? What would we lose? What is the worse that could happen if it were not in the Bill?

UK regulators are free to enter into negotiations with other national regulators at the moment, so why is this clause needed? Could the Minister just answer that, how it would be used and why we need to give Ministers this power? It does not use the words “encourage” or “encouragement”; it says that the Government can authorise a regulator to enter into negotiations, but it is hard to understand when that would ever be needed. Can the Minister answer the question: what would happen if this were not there and why, if a regulator did not do it of its own free will, the Government would need this power to authorise it to do it?

[Lord Grimstone of Boscobel (Con)]

My Lords, I note that the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, set out his intention to oppose Clause 4 standing part of the Bill. I hope that the arguments I have previously set out in favour of Clause 4 have gone some way to assuaging the noble Lord’s concerns.

First, I will directly answer the question just posed by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter. The fact is that there are regulators that would like to enter into regulator recognition agreements that do not have, or are not sure whether they have, the powers to do so. My noble friend Lady McIntosh of Pickering referred to regulators that have contacted her welcoming this clause. If regulators want this power in this Bill, and all of us are agreed that it is helpful for them to have it, even if the numbers are small, why would we not want to give it to them? Why are noble Lords saying that it is okay for regulators that already have this power to enter into recognition agreements but, for some reason that I find inexplicable—with due respect—regulators that do not have this power or are not sure whether their power is appropriate should not be allowed to have it? That seems to go against the spirit of regulatory autonomy and recognising that regulators know what they are talking about, in this area.

Before I start, I say to the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, that of course I have taken the comments made by the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee seriously. I read its memorandum very carefully, and think that the supplementary memorandum that I submitted afterwards met some of its concerns. I will continue to reflect on its two responses to me, as we attempt to move this Bill forward.

In answer to what my noble friend Lady McIntosh said about the coverage of the Bill, it looks weird when noble Lords start quoting individual examples of regulators that are covered or not. It is simply because the class of regulators that are covered by the Bill is that class of regulators that are governed by law. Off the cuff, I could not answer why the regulators of people who deal with pigs can and the regulators of those who deal with another animal may not. One would have to go back to the original legislation to do that, but this Bill does not make a value judgment on these regulators; it merely uses the legal definition of which regulators are covered by law to be its class of regulators for the purpose of the Bill.

I take this opportunity to emphasise the importance of regulator recognition agreements for enabling professionals who have qualified in one jurisdiction to work in another. They are important for trade: they help sought-after UK professionals to provide services into overseas markets and help overseas-qualified professionals to have their qualifications recognised in the UK, where a regulator determines that they meet our rigorous standards.

In some territories, or for some professions, there can be barriers to UK professionals practising overseas. Reciprocal agreements put in place by regulators can reduce these barriers. I come back to the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter: why would we not want regulators to do this, if that is what they want to do? For example, regulator recognition agreements can set out streamlined processes for two regulators to recognise each other’s professionals on the basis of similar standards. They can also include provisions that set out how applications for recognition will be treated; for example, through agreement on standard application or evidence requirements.

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It is only right that we support our regulators in making agreements to provide opportunities for professionals to use their qualifications overseas and for those qualified overseas to practise in the UK, where they meet our high standards. This clause will do just that. I can see no harmful implications from it at all, and I commend this clause to stand part of the Bill.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

The Minister has to understand that we are wholly supportive of regulator-to-regulator agreements; it is the best way, it is good for our professionals, very good for the City and for all sorts of things. The problem here is that the Minister does not even know how many regulators might need this. In his letter to me he named three: the Security Industry Authority, which I very much doubt wants an international agreement on this; a teaching register; and the Health and Safety Executive, which again is very unlikely to want this. He has now thrown into the mix the Intellectual Property Regulation Board, so we are possibly talking about having a whole Bill for four regulators. We would understand it if the Bill, in the case of statutory regulators which do not at the moment have the power to enter into a regulator recognition agreement, said that the Minister could by regulation make that happen. The problem is that it goes much further than that. We might have only three or four regulators but we have a whole clause which sounds more than the Minister suggests. Perhaps he could agree to a preamble to this clause that would spell out, where the regulator does not under its own statute have the necessary authority, that the Minister could do it. Is he willing to look at that?

[Lord Grimstone of Boscobel (Con)]

As always, I will consider carefully the suggestions made by the noble Baroness but, without wanting to repeat myself, I really do not understand this antipathy to giving power to those regulators that do not have this power.

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[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

My Lords, I too want to concentrate on Amendment 60A, the new clause proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, which, as the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, has said, is absolutely crucial, particularly on fitness to practise.

We have in this country high standards not just of professional capability but of probity, which, indeed, go further and wider than the professions covered in this Bill. I well remember on almost my first day as a magistrate, many decades ago, seeing a man lose his licence to be a bus conductor in London because of a very minor and quite unrelated traffic offence; it was because of the standards we demand of those in public sector.

Our doctors, nurses, social workers, lawyers and teachers are not just good with their hands and brains; they are also not wife-beaters, drunken drivers, shoplifters or fraudsters. Fitness to practise means obedience to ethical codes, and never carrying out tasks outwith the abilities and competence of the particular profession. It includes in many professions the reporting of errors, maintaining skill levels, undertaking CPD and other aspects of what being a professional means. As the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, allows, it is important that if we are either to encourage—a word we have used—or even mandate regulators to have processes in place to recognise those qualified in other jurisdictions, then checking up on these wider aspects really must be permitted as part of the process. I hope that, in one way or another, the Minister will agree to bring something back in the Government’s own words on Report.

[Lord Grimstone of Boscobel (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Lansley for tabling Amendments 34A and 60A, and I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Garden of Frognal, for tabling Amendment 42A.

Amendment 34A seeks to require that a regulator of a profession ensures that an individual is suitably indemnified or insured before they may practise a profession, if that regulator sets up recognition routes as a result of regulations made under Clauses 1, 3 or 4. Amendment 60A intends to ensure that the recognition of an individual with overseas professional qualifications or experience should not be sufficient in itself to confer an entitlement for that individual to practise that profession in the UK or a part of the UK. It seeks to ensure that the regulator can require that an individual has demonstrated their fitness to practise and produced evidence of their overseas experience.

I am in complete agreement with my noble friend’s intent in bringing forward these two new clauses. Under Clause 1, as amended in my name, regulations creating recognition routes can specify additional conditions which must be satisfied before a regulator makes a determination that recognition is given. This means that any other appropriate regulatory criteria, such as language proficiency, appropriate indemnity or insurance arrangements or criminal record checks, must also continue to be met before a regulator may give access to a profession. All these conditions could be imposed by a regulator under Clause 1, as amended. In answer to the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, determining fitness to practise sits absolutely within the autonomy of the regulator. Nothing in the Bill disturbs that.

The amendments are also relevant to Clause 3, relating to the implementation of international agreements. As I set out earlier, Clause 3 does not affect the ability of national authorities or regulators to set and maintain professional standards. This includes the requirements to practise that profession, including being fit to practise and any requirements to have insurance.

Clause 4 allows the appropriate national authority to authorise a regulator to enter into regulator recognition agreements. The decision to enter into such an agreement and its terms are for the relevant regulator. This goes to the heart of the principle of regulator autonomy. It should be for the regulators concerned to decide whether to place requirements relating to professional indemnity insurance. It is highly unlikely that a regulator would agree terms which would provide access to a profession to individuals unfit to practise it. Language proficiency, indemnity arrangements and criminal record checks are prevalent examples of criteria that our professional regulators use now to assess and determine an individual’s fitness to practise. Nothing in the Bill disturbs this and, again, the regulator is free to determine how to go about it. I have been clear that we must protect regulators’ autonomy, including deciding who practises a profession and how to make assessments on issues such as information relating to overseas experience.

I have discussed this Bill with regulators such as the GMC, the GNC and the Nursing and Midwifery Council. Let me be crystal clear, the amendments in my name allow them to determine who is fit to practise their profession here, beyond recognition alone. They have welcomed this. The amendments to Clauses 3 and 4 are unnecessary as they do not cut across regulators’ ability to set and maintain standards.

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[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, my noble friend Lady Garden has wisely pointed out the poor grammar in the Bill. I hope that note will be taken of that. The really significant question here is what the assistance centre is for. It is built on—and the Minister went out of his way last time to point this out—the modest size and the modest number of inquiries that the current assistance centre has dealt with. It is a creation of the UK Government as a result of a non-legal requirement from the EU—a suggestion from the EU. It is not a legislative requirement by the EU. The UK Government decided to make the requirement in law, but the EU situation does not make it a requirement.

We therefore have this organisation that has clearly, in the past, had a small, modest but useful function, but the world has moved on. If you search for anything online these days, there is a wealth of information. Even if you have a limited level of experience in a particular field, you rapidly discover what information is reliable and what is not. What is proposed here is a much bigger organisation—a much more grandiose and legally established organisation with scope for further growth. The Minister told me not to be suspicious, but I remain suspicious. In my view, the UK Government see this organisation as an opportunity for them to take a centralising, co-ordinating role which will nudge the devolved Administrations out of the way in fields where the vast majority of activity is devolved, such as health, teaching and social work. The day-to-day activity in the health service, the teaching profession and social work is done and controlled by the devolved Administrations, even if there are not always separate regulators.

We have raised previously the concurrency of powers of the devolved Administrations and the UK Government. This is an attempt by the UK Government to bring what they see as order and an element of control to the situation. If the assistance centre had a purpose, modern search facilities online have now made it redundant. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, that it is better to put it to sleep—put it out of its misery.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

My Lords, while I absolutely agree with my noble friend Lord Foulkes that any advice would be better if it was comprehensive and included all the things that everyone would want to know if they were applying either to move here or to go away, the more fundamental question, which I and the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, asked, is whether we need Clause 7 at all. As she and others have said, it is not clear why it is necessary to establish a statutory advice centre simply to handle information and provide advice and assistance. It will not make any decisions. It will not have the authority to chide regulators for not doing something; it does not have any authority over them. The statutory requirement is actually on regulators to provide advice to the centre—there is no statutory requirement on the centre to fine them if they do not do it or anything else like that—although, as has been said, there are already other ways of getting that information. In addition, only the UK Government, not the other Governments in the Bill, interestingly enough, are able to enforce this requirement. I do not know whether that is an oversight but, given that there is more than one national authority in the Bill, it would be interesting to know why the requirement on regulators is laid down only by the UK Government.

This is all very strange. It is a very clunky and convoluted way of simply asking statutory regulators to tell a Minister such information as is needed to provide advice to potential applicants on how they go about getting their qualifications recognised here. They have been doing that for years. We heard earlier about a number of regulators, particularly in the health service, veterinary science and other areas, that have been doing this for years without any statutory requirement to provide the advice, so it is unclear why the new law is needed. As has already been said, we know that the assistance centre is already in operation. But I think none of us knows why we need a specific underpinning now, and what it is that could not be done by a couple of civil servants within BEIS.

The Minister said last Wednesday that “new legislative cover” is required, but he did not spell out what it was required to do—why this could not be done on a voluntary basis. We have lots of other advice centres which do not have to have statutory underpinning, so why is legislation needed? He said, as the noble Lord, Lord Fox, just quoted, that the centre

“is basically a focal point—a signposting mechanism that tells people where to go to get more information about professions”

and that

“it employs either two or three people.”

It must be tiny; I was going to say that it received 1,600 queries in a year, but it has now received 1,601—I think our little website here gets far more hits than that. As the Minister had the honesty to confess:

“These queries can be as simple as saying, ‘What is the address of the place I have to write to, to find out how I become a nurse in Great Britain?’”—[Official Report, 9/6/21; col. 1501.]


If you google “nurse vacancies”, you might just find it. The idea that we are employing anybody and paying them money to tell people about the address they need to write to to find out how to become a nurse in Great Britain makes me worried, and why on earth does it have to be a statutory body if it is just signposting?

The impact assessment says that

“the Secretary of State can (through contractual arrangements) require the national assistance centre to support professionals”—

it is unclear what “support” means—

“in getting their UK qualifications recognised overseas by providing reasonable information to their overseas counterparts.”

Again, surely the regulator can do that. If a doctor wants to apply to be a doctor in New Zealand, for example, surely their regulator can supply that information. If it is to be done by the advice centre and by contract, it is really hard to think why, again, it needs two bodies or persons to be statutory if they are simply setting up contracts to be able to exchange information—because it is not a decision-making body.

It is unclear what the relationship will be between the centre and overseas regulators. If it is by contracts, how much will they be bound by data protection to ensure that the overseas regulators will look after people’s data according to normal laws? That is easier in a regulator-to-regulator agreement—we have talked about these elsewhere, so why not here?

I am completely mystified as to why Clause 7 is in the Bill. Perhaps we can just take it out, and then we can all go home.

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

I have to confess that I am still surprised that this is proving such a contentious part of the Bill. For the record, the centre has had 1,602 inquiries—I rang it this morning and it was very helpful, answering the phone within minutes and telling me exactly what to do about what I was asking.

I thank the noble Lords, Lord Foulkes and Lord Fox, and the noble Baroness, Lady Garden of Frognal, for their amendments, which address wide-ranging issues around the operation of the assistance centre, in particular extending the scope of advice provided, readjusting how information-sharing interacts with data protection, and the definition of “corresponding profession”.

Amendment 39 from the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, seeks to place an additional duty on the Secretary of State to make arrangements for the assistance centre to publish advice and information about immigration requirements for entry to the UK for the purposes of practising a regulated profession. I clarify that, under the current arrangements, the assistance centre is part of the UK ENIC, which I had not realised until the noble Lord brought that up. The UK ENIC focuses more broadly on academic qualifications, whereas the assistance centre focuses on professional qualifications.

Placing an additional duty on the assistance centre to publish advice and information about immigration requirements would go beyond the scope of the Bill. Furthermore, under the provisions of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999, immigration advice and services can be provided only by qualified persons. To include these additional requirements would increase the asks on the remit of the assistance centre and the qualifications of the staff required to deliver it. It would also increase the costs associated with doing so. I know that others in the Committee, including my noble friend Lady Noakes, wish any service to be as economical and targeted as possible.

The Home Office already provides guides and tools to the public to help them understand immigration requirements and eligibility, including a dedicated visa-checking tool. Adding this to the assistance centre contract would therefore duplicate Home Office services.

Amendment 43 tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Fox, would remove Clause 7(4), which clarifies that the disclosure of the information required under Clause 7 does not breach disclosure restrictions, such as any obligations of confidence. The subsection as drafted is both consistent with existing legislation and required to give clarity about the intersection of this clause with data protection legislation. Without it, no direction would be given on which takes precedence.

The noble Lord, Lord Fox, also asked about the information that the Government are asking regulators to provide to the assistance centre. This is very limited in nature and not onerous: it is to ensure that the assistance centre has the necessary information to support the delivery of its functions. It also facilitates transparency on the recognition of professional qualifications in the UK. Regulators are already required to provide this information to the current assistance centre, and, in our engagement, no regulators have raised concerns about continuing to do so. The objective of the service provided by the assistance centre is and always has been to complement and support regulators, not to replace them.

Amendments 44 and 50 tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, relate to data protection in Clauses 7 and 10. Similarly to another tabled by him last week, they seek to create a defence if a disclosure made under the duties in either clause contravenes data protection legislation. As my noble friend Lord Lansley reflected on the first day of Committee, the approach in the Bill is consistent with existing legislation such as the Trade (Disclosure of Information) Act 2020 and the European Union (Future Relationship) Act 2020. I return to my earlier point that Clauses 7 and 10 require disclosure only when it does not contravene data protection legislation. Therefore, a defence is not needed.