Telecommunications Infrastructure (Leasehold Property) Bill

Debate between Lord Fox and Lord Adonis

Committee stage & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 2nd June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Fox (LD)]

I thank my noble friend Lord Clement- Jones for setting out this amendment so effectively. He promised to be brief; I will be even briefer. Is this not symptomatic of the whole Bill, where the balance is against things happening rather than for making things happen? What was in the Government’s mind when they wrote this clause and put this Bill together? Is this an enabling Bill or a sort of grudging Bill that somehow lets a few things happen but ends up stopping a lot of other things? Why did the Government take this kind of attitude, which is symptomatic of the whole Bill?

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

Am I coming through loud and clear? I suddenly have the Throne as my picture on the screen. Should I be worried?

Recognition of Professional Qualifications (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2018

Debate between Lord Fox and Lord Adonis

Monday 11th February 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Fox]

I thank the noble Baroness for her intervention, as that seemed to be the tone of the debate in the other place.

More importantly, at that time the Minister was asked how many British citizens are affected and what was being done to inform them. He then gave a series of off-the-cuff answers. There has been time now for the department to get to some substance, given that that debate occurred some time ago. Perhaps the Minister can tell us how many there are or how one can go about finding out how many are involved. What level of the information process is going on? As we know, the European Union has said that individuals currently practising abroad on this basis will have to register with the relevant bodies within the European Union. This is worrying, and worrying for British citizens. The Minister should take this seriously and explain what is going on.

The issue regarding the medical profession will be very important indeed. It is about making sure that we do not just continue to recognise the qualifications of current employees in the health service, but have a smooth and seamless way in which future employees can be qualified to operate in it.

On the subject of farriers, it is not clear to me why farriers are included, but in another off-the-cuff comment the Minister in the other place made a joke. He said that one Member of the other place who was a qualified accountant was lucky because he was not a farrier. That seemed to imply that farriers were providing a second-class service to that of chartered accountants. Perhaps the Minister can dispel that myth.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness and the noble Lord, Lord Fox, have raised a number of significant issues. The first point to make about the issues involved, which are to do with the recognition of professional qualifications or the potential non-recognition of them in what will be only six weeks’ time, is that it seems impossible to say that these issues are purely technical. There is nothing technical about whether people’s professional qualifications are or are not going to apply, and whether they will or will not be able to work in a matter of months. The noble Baroness said, rightly, that the response of the Government is that further negotiations should take place on this. We are six weeks away—six weeks—and I doubt that the Minister is going to pretend, since his honourable friend in another place did not, that these matters can be resolved in the next six weeks.

[Lord Adonis]

That is a very good question. My understanding—but I am not the Minister and he will have to tell us, since it is hard enough for us to understand without my trying to answer for him—is that the provisions of this statutory instrument give all the relevant regulatory bodies dealing with professional qualifications the power to determine whether those bodies will admit EEA and EU nationals and their qualifications. If the noble Baroness is right, it is much more complicated than I thought. I had thought that this one statutory instrument simply conferred all those powers, in so far as they are granted by the state, but if in fact further statutory instruments will be required that will be of huge concern to many professionals.

We are told that all these statutory instruments are technical. I emphasise that there is nothing technical about these issues at all. Indeed, the scale of the issues became apparent to me only on reading the debate in another place, which was referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Fox. If I may, I will read quite a chilling exchange between my honourable friend Chi Onwurah and Richard Harrington, the Business Minister, on this very important question of what will happen to UK nationals who have jobs on the continent which, at the moment, depend upon the automatic and mutual recognition of qualifications. We are saying, quite properly, that we are going to immediately roll over the recognition of qualifications of EU nationals here and we have the power to do so—of course, we have no power to do so and enforce this in respect of UK nationals who practise on the continent. The House can imagine the concerns that they have.

I will read the exchanges from the other place. My honourable friend asks the Minister,

“given that British citizens living in the European Union will be required to regularise their professional qualifications, does the Minister envisage that there could be circumstances in which they would not be able to continue working without doing so?”,

to which the Minister replied:

“I envisage that there could be those circumstances … the only way that that could not happen is for there to be no crashing out … the hon. Lady has made valid point; I would not say it was a ridiculous point”.—[Official Report, Commons, Sixth Delegated Legislation Committee, 4/2/19; col. 11.]


This is a matter of huge concern. This Parliament is not in a position to be able to guarantee that—we do not even know the number.

[Lord Fox]

The noble Lord is completely correct, but the Minister was incorrect in saying that by voting for the current deal this would not be an issue. The political declaration says that free movement of people will end. Therefore, this issue remains on the table whether or not there is a deal, whether we crash out or have a deal.

[Lord Adonis]

The noble Lord is absolutely right. What makes it even more extraordinary is that we are debating this as some kind of technical change, when in fact it is potentially fundamentally affecting the livelihoods of UK citizens abroad, which Her Majesty’s Government have a duty to protect. That is one of the fundamental duties of the state: to protect the interests of citizens going about their lawful business. The Government do not even know the numbers. The Minister for Business in another place said:

“I do not know how we would know which UK nationals were working abroad”.—[Official Report, Commons, Sixth Delegated Legislation Committee, 4/2/19; cols. 11-12.]


If this was being properly prepared for, it is within the resources of Her Majesty’s Government to be able to make estimates to consult with the relevant professional bodies and invite those affected to make representations. However, all the preparation of these instruments has happened in secret, so there has been no opportunity to do so.

With the situation we are facing in respect of this instrument it is fundamentally irresponsible for us to be proceeding down this course. I doubt whether the Minister will be able to keep a straight face and say that this is purely technical—it clearly is not a technical matter that Her Majesty’s Government are not in a position to guarantee the right of UK citizens to continue in their employment on the continent after 29 March. I anticipate that he will say that he has no choice because if we crash out there is no alternative. But there is an alternative: for us not to crash out on 29 March. The Government should do what they have been resisting for months; in the event of us not having a deal by the end of March—and the Government are running down the clock now, deeply irresponsibly—they should, in good order, apply for an extension of Article 50 so that we do not crash out.

This statutory instrument brings into very sharp relief the reasons why it is so much the duty of the Government and the state to do so. We are not in a position otherwise to guarantee the fundamental and legitimate rights of UK citizens, unless we have a continuation of the current regime of European law. We have no basis to do so; Ministers have accepted that. Because we have good relations with our European neighbours, we are hoping that they will not start imposing new requirements or that their relevant professional bodies will not start nit-picking or introducing new requirements.

Not only do we not have a guarantee—the noble Lord, Lord Fox, used the word “guarantee”—we do not even have any assurance. I can understand that it might not be possible to guarantee it, but because there has been no time to have any of these discussions, we have no assurances whatever that the existing qualifications of UK citizens on the continent will be recognised. Nor do we have any assurance that there might not be sudden changes. Let us make some fair assessment of what will happen. I will be astonished if existing employers try to turf out UK citizens from their jobs on 29 March. However, it is perfectly possible.

Some of us are acquainted with professional bodies on the continent. They are sticklers for their processes. Sometimes they can be a tad nationalistic in their approach to these issues, which is part of the reason for our being in the EU. They can decide to start protecting their own, and they will have an absolute right to do so once we do not have these rules in place. Profession by profession, in all kinds of technical and perhaps even surreptitious ways, I can easily see them start changing the rules, which will quite rapidly close down options for UK citizens to be able to take jobs on the continent. These are not technical issues; these are fundamental issues.

[Lord Fox]

Does the noble Lord agree that if we allow our regulators sector by sector to supervise the application process and grant access or stop access on the basis of their rules, that is exactly what will happen in all the countries of the EU 27? The danger of restrictive practice such as he suggests is very real.

[Lord Adonis]

The noble Lord makes a very good point, because, yet again, there has been no proper process of consultation. I am becoming a bit of a connoisseur of how consultation has been conducted under these statutory instruments and I can tell your Lordships that this one is unique in that it does not even have a paragraph that says what the consultation was. Paragraph 10 of the Explanatory Memorandum is simply headed: “Consultation outcome”. It continues:

“Consultation between Devolved Administration officials and Government officials, supported by Government Legal Advisers, took the form of regular meetings and engagement specific to the amendments made by this instrument”.


It does not say what that consultation was, with whom it was conducted, what the results were, or anything. However, I note that quoted by my assiduous honourable friend Chi Onwurah in the debate in the other place was the briefing given to her by the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales, which said—I suspect there have been many such representations:

“’Elements of the SI are open to interpretation. A UK regulator could refuse an EEA applicant by saying the EEA qualification is not equivalent in some way. There is a chance that EU members states will notice this and potentially do the same in their provisions for considering UK nationals/UK qualification holders’”.—[Official Report, Commons, Sixth Delegated Legislation Committee, 4/2/19; col. 7.]


That goes to the fundamental point made by the noble Lord, Lord Fox, which is that Her Majesty’s Government have no means of requiring our professional bodies to continue recognising the qualifications of EU nationals. Indeed, the Institute of Chartered Accountants, which represents one of the most numerous and significant professions in the country, says—it is not us scaremongering —that under these regulations regulators could choose to vary their requirements in respect of mutual recognition and that, if they do so, the legitimate expectation is that regulators on the continent do tit-for-tat responses in respect of their countries.

Let us be clear—we are debating this statutory instrument some six weeks before it comes into effect: we are talking about hundreds of professions, thousands of professional qualifications and 27 other countries, all of which will have discretion to act as they see fit in the matter of these regulations after 29 March. This is profoundly irresponsible. It is just one facet of the whole business of crashing out with no deal, but I could not conceivably be a party to agreeing it today. If the noble Lord, Lord Fox, chooses to divide the House on it, I shall certainly not support the regulations.

Companies, Limited Liability Partnerships and Partnerships (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

Debate between Lord Fox and Lord Adonis

Monday 11th February 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Fox (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for bringing this SI to the House. It is another episode in the unravelling process. I have four comments, along with one pro forma comment on consultation.

The Minister mentioned the Business Registers Interconnection System. My understanding is that that is already part of Companies House. Can the Minister assure your Lordships’ House that there is no change in the information available—in other words that the information that was available on BRIS remains available on the new Companies House system?

That takes me to my second point. There are a number of mentions of a role for the company registrar in this instrument, and a lot of them are time-limited over the three months post exit day. What level of capacity will be needed to handle what will be a surge of registration, inquiry and people wanting to know what to do? What level of information will go out to inform companies that they are required to do these things? Who will hold the buck for putting that information out there? It is not clear how companies will find out about this or whether there will be the capacity within Companies House to handle the three-month surge. I would like to know what kind of risk analysis has been done by the Government and what level of communication they are planning.

Thirdly, as the Minister set out there are a number of technical changes around cross holdings of shares between EEA and UK companies. It is not clear to me how many companies this would affect. What intelligence do the Government have on how many companies will be affected in this shareholding? Obviously, there is time for these companies to change that. Does that significantly change the shareholder profile of many companies in this country? If so, how? Does it have any effect overall on market liquidity? What kind of analysis of what this means has gone on?

The final substantive point is on cross-border mergers. The Minister mentioned those in his introduction. He did not explain what the implications are if there are cross-border mergers already under way now or at the time of exit. What regime are these cross-border mergers governed by?

All of this is regrettable, because we have a functioning system that works very well. I am co-operating in so far as I think it is important that we have some sense of where this is going in the regrettable event of exit day. My final point is this: can the Minister outline what level of consultation has gone on? Again, it looks like none. What is the justification for no consultation?

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

My Lords, I want to pick up on consultation, the final point of the noble Lord, Lord Fox. A theme running through our consideration of all these statutory instruments is either non-existent or totally inadequate consultation, which in any other context would not be regarded as acceptable. Since these are changes in the law that affect significant parts of our economy and significant organisations, it is totally unacceptable that there was no proper consultation.

The blather in the Explanatory Memoranda, which varies by statutory instrument, amounts to the same thing: all this planning was done in secret. It is only at the last minute that this cascade of orders has been presented to the House. Because, I presume, the Government did not want to indicate to the EU that we were engaged in such intensive no-deal planning, there is a straightforward admission that practically no consultation has taken place at all.

The noble Lord, Lord Fox, asked what the level of consultation was. We are told in paragraph 10.1 of the Explanatory Memorandum:

“We have not been able to publicly consult in order to minimise sensitivities in advance of negotiations with the EU”.


But these negotiations had been going on for two and a half years when this order was laid before Parliament. Can the Minister tell us what the sensitivities were in advance of negotiations with the EU, which meant us being told that an entirely technical set of changes concerning access to Companies House databases could not be consulted upon with the relevant business communities? It seems to me that the only thing that is sensitive is not the content of these regulations but the very fact that the Government were engaging in no-deal planning. But it was hardly a secret that the Government were engaging in no-deal planning—it was widely known. After all, the Prime Minister told us that no deal would be better than a bad deal. The arguments are entirely implausible and unacceptable.

What really happened, as we are seeing time and again in these orders, is that the Government had no idea of the scale of the changes that would be required. This was all done in a massive rush in the run-up to Christmas, when the no-deal planning was accelerated. It was not that there were sensitivities—there were no sensitivities at all in respect of these orders. Having read the debates on the orders in the other place, I cannot see a single sensitivity. Indeed, the Government’s own argument that these changes are technical answers the point about there being sensitivities.

The reason there was no consultation is that there was no time to consult. And the reason there was no time to consult is because this whole thing has been done in a massive rush. That is why—having had a quick glance at the Order Paper—we have this week some 30 statutory instruments being considered one after another and we are not being given a recess.

While these changes themselves appear entirely technical, the continuing declaration by the Government, order by order, that there has been no meaningful consultation whatever is unacceptable. It is only right that the House should put that on record. As we get to the end game of this terrible period, that will weigh on the House as we consider whether it is right to extend the Article 50 negotiating period so that we are not faced with what will otherwise happen—a massive rush of ill-considered orders with almost no time to consider them at the end.

I have one specific question for the Minister. Paragraph 10.1 states that informal consultation took place with the Law Society, but it does not mention any business-related organisations. It does not say whether the CBI or the Federation of Small Businesses were consulted, even informally. Those are the organisations that represent the business community, so will the Minister tell us why, in this informal consultation, only the Law Society was consulted? What is the special status of the Law Society in relation to this statutory instrument, which in fact affects companies and the operation of Companies House? Why were the CBI and the FSB not consulted?

Since this instrument has been published, of course, business organisations have had a chance to come forward. Will the Minister tell us whether the CBI, the Federation of Small Businesses or any other business-related organisation made any informal or formal responses to the Government, and what those responses were?