Professional Qualifications Bill [HL]

Lord Duncan of Springbank Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 22nd June 2021 Lords Chamber

I hope that my explanation in relation to Amendments 45, 46, 63 and 68 has been helpful. I ask that my noble friend Lady Noakes and the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter of Kentish Town, withdraw and do not press their amendments.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Duncan of Springbank) (Con)]

My Lords, I have received two requests to speak after the Minister, from the noble Lord, Lord Purvis of Tweed, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter of Kentish Town. I will call them in that order.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, on the Australian point, I think the Statement on the Australian agreement will be repeated in this House, and I will pursue that aspect with the Minister there; so he has advance notice. What he just said at the Dispatch Box does not tally with what he sent me in letters, with accompanying documentation, about services and the recognition of professional qualifications. My questions to the Minister are on the back of this.

This place will scrutinise legislation but also the Government’s proposals. We have no proposals from the Government to scrutinise because they have not brought forward proposals on what they want to do with some of these powers, so we are struggling. On the specific point of the list, it is not just the regulator bodies that should be on a list. The list is meaningful if we know what the bodies are with regards to the professional qualifications.

On the regulated professions database, the entry for pig farmers shows that they are regulated by legislation. No one has ever denied that is the case because anybody involved in livestock maintenance or husbandry in this country operates under the welfare of farmed animals regulations. On the database, there are the Welfare of Farmed Animals (England) Regulations, the Welfare of Farmed Animals (Scotland) Regulations—there is no reference to any for Scotland on the list—the Welfare of Farmed Animals (Wales) Regulations, and the Welfare of Farmed Animals Regulations (Northern Ireland). Further down it has a box:

“Qualification level: NA—Not applicable”.


If the Bill is about recognising professional qualifications for someone wanting to become a pig farmer in any component part of the United Kingdom, and there are no applicable qualifications for it, why is it on this list? We know that a farmer is regulated by laws, and lots of them, but that is irrelevant for the purposes of the Bill. It is of concern because, if it is in the Bill, it will fall foul of all the different requirements under the Bill.

I want to ask a second question with regard to the list and say why it has to be meaningful. Incidentally, we have raised farriers previously; the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, did so. Farriers remain on the list, so I looked up the Farriers Registration Council. It says that the route to be a farrier is through an apprenticeship; there is no qualification route as an automatic mechanism which can be recognised by someone else. All the professions under the list which have apprenticeship routes are not covered by Clause 1, so where would they be covered? That is the concern that this list generates. It is not just about what is or is not on it; what does it mean by being on it?

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Amendment 60B withdrawn.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Duncan of Springbank) (Con)]

Before I go on to the next group, it is perhaps worth saying to those who wish to speak after the Minister that the earlier they can inform us, the more likely it is that the message can be passed directly on. I am afraid that I was not able to call the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, as I had to apply the same rules that I applied to the noble Lord, Lord Purvis of Tweed, for the same reason.

We now come to the group beginning with Amendment 61. Anyone wishing to press this or anything else in this group to a Division must make this clear in the debate. I call the noble Lord, Lord Palmer of Childs Hill.

Clause 16: Interpretation

Amendment 61

Moved by

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[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Duncan of Springbank) (Con)]

Before saying that there are no requests to speak after the Minister, I will just confirm this time that there are no such requests. No? Excellent—I therefore call the noble Lord, Lord Palmer of Childs Hill.

[Lord Palmer of Childs Hill (LD)]

My Lords, I am glad that the Minister understands the mood of the House, which has been very clear over the course of our proceedings on the Bill. I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Noakes and Lady Hayter, for contributing on these amendments, which noble Lords will appreciate were put down at a very early stage of the Bill, on the basis of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales indicating to me—but not to everybody—that it wished to be named in the Bill. The noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, quite rightly said that it is not the only accountancy body. I raised this with the ICAEW, which said that it did not at this late stage want to be seen as speaking for all the other bodies but to test the water on behalf of the accountancy profession.

Noble Lords made the point that there is no shortage of accountants, but inclusion in the Bill does not necessarily mean shortage—I am not sure whether there is a shortage of pig farmers but nevertheless they are in the Bill; therefore, there is an argument for this. The noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, quite rightly said that some accountants feel that they need to be seen in, and part of, the Bill, but they have come very to it very late. I hope that this can be ironed out.

I thank the Minister for replying positively to many of the points that concerned me and beg leave to withdraw my amendment.