DRAFT SERVICES OF LAWYERS AND LAWYER'S PRACTICE (REVOCATION ETC.) (EU EXIT) REGULATIONS 2020

Alex Cunningham Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd September 2020 General Committees

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve briefly under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. It is quite a sad business that we have to spend so much of our time preparing for the potential of no deal at the end of the transition period.

The Minister has still given us full value in outlining what the statutory instrument means. As he said, it ensures that the applications of EU lawyers who apply to practise law across England, Wales and Northern Ireland before the end of the transition period can have their applications properly considered. As he said, the instrument also protects the rights of Swiss lawyers who have been practising law in England, Wales and Northern Ireland before the end of the transition period, and implements a transition of four years after Brexit for Swiss lawyers to register and practise law across the three countries, as well as allowing cross-border co-operation between England, Wales, Northern Ireland, legal regulators and EU regulators.

I see no need to go into much detail about what these technical changes mean—the Minister has done that in tremendous detail—but we have to recognise that the regulations ensure that foreign lawyers who apply to practise here can continue to do so in future, when we will need the benefit of their skills and expertise. I am sure it will be interesting to see how the legal system operates in relation to lawyers after the end of the transition period on 31 December, when we will see an end to the preferential treatment of EU and EEA-EFTA lawyers compared with lawyers across the rest of the world.

It is clear that the Minister agrees with me that it is important that people from overseas are able to practise in this country and that we remove the impediments created by our leaving the EU to allow anyone who has already applied to join one of our legal professions to do so. The regulations have the important provision to allow existing lawyers to be properly subject to disciplinary proceedings that might have been started against them in recent times.

I hope the Minister also agrees that it is only right that we meet all our obligations under the terms of the withdrawal agreement, even though many on the Government Benches would simply rip it up and happily break international law. I seek his confirmation that it is the intention of the Ministry of Justice to honour the law. I would be obliged if he gave us an insight into how the Government will ensure that equally robust measures are put in place to ensure that people from across the wider world seeking to practise here are properly qualified to do so and will be subject to the same standards and codes as UK lawyers. Having dealt with that, I can confirm to the Minister that the Opposition will not oppose the regulations.