European Qualifications (Health and Social Care Professions) (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2018

Debate between Lord Hunt of Kings Heath and Baroness Hayman

Thursday 7th March 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, it is very tempting to follow the noble Lords, Lord Warner and Lord Deben, in their remarks. I do not know whether the noble Lord, Lord Deben, has studied the document issued by the US Government last week on their requirements for a trade deal, but there is a contrast between what Brexiteers told the public about how easy trade deals would be and the demands of the US Government, which this Government will have to accede to in their desperation to get a trade deal, and their implications for the National Health Service. Apart from anything else, they will mean that voluntary control on prices of branded drugs will go and the market which the Government now want to legislate to remove, amending the Health and Social Care Act 2012, would fall foul of the requirements of the US Government on public services, which are very explicit about the areas they want US corporations to bid for.

As the noble Lord, Lord Deben, said, I wonder how those on the Front Bench feel about being members of a Government which will be excoriated for decades to come, perhaps as was the pre-war Government in the 1930s, for the lack of preparations they made for the disaster into which they are now taking this country. Of course, this SI is a sort of backstop which, it is hoped, will never come into being. But do we really think the vote will take place next week or will it, as some people feel, be postponed yet again to a cliff edge, when there is no guarantee whatever that there will be an agreement to enter talks about an agreement? This order takes on considerable importance.

I should at this point declare my interests as a member of the General Medical Council and a trustee of the Royal College of Ophthalmologists, and say that the GMC welcomes the order on its narrow terms. I should say to the noble Lord, Lord Deben, that it is the GMC’s view that it can administer the new arrangements effectively without additional substantive burdens being placed on its day-to-day operations. I do not know whether that reassures him; I hope it may.

I should like the Minister to comment on one area which is relevant to what my noble friend and the noble Baroness, Lady Jolly, said. It relates to page 9 of the order, where new powers are afforded to regulators effectively to determine what should and should not be comparable clinical qualifications to those gained in the UK. This is clearly of great importance given the way we are going. Instead of the current automatic recognition given to qualifications gained by, for example, doctors, dentists and nurses in another EEA country, the powers allow them to be deemed non-comparable by a regulator if it felt that necessary for patient safety reasons. The order states that the Privy Council would have to approve any such decision by the regulator. On what basis would the Privy Council approve or not approve a request to do so? Without some idea of the criteria to be used, it will be difficult for regulators to adopt the powers in the order in this area with confidence. Do the Government expect to issue guidance to advise regulators on the basis of a Privy Council judgment? Can they do so as quickly as possible, and will they consult the regulators in so doing?

[Baroness Hayman (CB)]

I also declare an interest as having been a member of the General Medical Council until that post was taken up by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath.

Many of the points I wanted to make have already been made by the noble Baroness, Lady Jolly, and the noble Lord, Lord Hunt. I follow up his point about the ability to remove a qualification from automatic acceptance. When she introduced the SI, the Minister said that the Government would not issue guidelines. If there are no guidelines, one regulator may decide to remove an automatic qualification. The Minister said that it is in the best position to do so, but the SI lays down that there must be approval by the Privy Council. How is the Privy Council to make its decisions and against which criteria? There must either be criteria for the regulators to abide by and the Privy Council to supervise, or you give power completely to the regulator. I do not see how that process has any power or heft without guidelines.

The issue of review after two years has also been raised. There is concern that that review should be wide-ranging, because the process for recognising the qualifications of non-EEA and Swiss medical professionals is not satisfactory at the moment. It can be very long, drawn-out, bureaucratic and take a lot of money and time, as opposed to the streamlined system that we have had with EEA and Swiss nationals, which we are throwing away if we go for a no-deal Brexit. It is really important that that review is wide-ranging and does not leave us at the end with another cliff edge, which is that these health professionals on whom we depend so much become translated into international medical graduates and subject to an extremely unsatisfactory process.

In his wonderful speech the noble Lord, Lord Deben, referred to how the Government say that we will have wonderful flexibility but never quite explain what that is. Actually, the Government have flexibility on international medical graduates, because those procedures are not governed by the European Communities Act or by our membership of the EU. For many years, regulators have wanted to make progress on the issue but have not been given the legislative time or space and policy commitment from the Government so to do.

Alongside this work on EEA graduates, can we make sure that we look at the wider issue of doctors and other medical professionals coming here from outside the EEA? If the overall immigration trends are mirrored in the people coming to this country as medical professionals, we will see fewer EEA medical professionals but more IMG medical professionals coming here. I believe that we are seeing that already. Therefore, how we recognise their qualifications will be even more important.