European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe Excerpts

Committee: 7th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 14th March 2018 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe]

144: Clause 9, in paragraph (a), after “EU” insert “, including a requirement to seek ongoing mutual recognition of professional qualifications”

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab)]

My Lords, I am pleased to follow my noble friend Lord Monks. I support the fundamental aim of Amendment 142 that Parliament should be empowered to determine the mandate for the Government to follow in the talks about the UK’s future relations with the EU.

Amendment 144 seeks to place a requirement on HMG to secure mutual recognition of professional qualifications. The Government have agreed to seek to protect the rights of EU citizens in the UK and UK nationals in the EU under the withdrawal agreement. This includes the continued recognition of professional qualifications. However, the withdrawal agreement is a draft agreement and still needs to be agreed with the EU 27 and then negotiated with the UK. The final withdrawal deal will make reference to the framework for our future relationship with the EU, which is why it is important that mutual recognition of professional qualifications, which I will refer to as MRPQ, is included. The amendment is about bringing more certainty to British and EU citizens, to businesses and to services about how they can operate in future.

I should like to outline why MRPQ is important to a range of professions and what the consequences would be for those professions if we did not have an agreement in place. The professional business sector generates a huge amount of wealth and jobs for both the UK and the EU, and the current system of mutual recognition of professional qualifications within the sector allows for a great deal of flexibility and freedom. For example, an architect who studied and qualified in France can work on a project in Rome and then establish his own practice in Birmingham. Lawyers who qualified in the UK can move between the UK and Belgium, providing advice to clients in Brussels on both English corporate and finance law and EU competition law, and there is no need for these individuals to prove that their qualifications meet local standards. UK auditors can take part in audits in other member states, although they cannot sign off an audit report in that state unless they have taken an additional aptitude test.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe]

My Lords, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment standing in my name on the Order Paper.

Amendment 144 (to Amendment 142) withdrawn.