Professional Qualifications Bill [HL]

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 25th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, who expertly outlined the complexity contained within this apparently simple Bill.

It is also a pleasure to welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Blake of Leeds, who is not currently in her place, to her new role. I share the concerns that she expressed about the situation of EEA and Swiss citizens who are already here and practising their professions: they are established and their skills and experience are proven, and we need to ensure that they are able to continue without stress, worry or fear. Some of the experiences that we are already seeing with the settled status scheme, at borders in particular, is a great cause for concern.

I share the concern expressed by the noble Baroness, Lady Blake, and many others about the risk of professional bodies coming under pressure to tie trade deals together with recognition. I particularly note the dangers, as the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, said, of that whole approach to, and model of, reciprocity.

While sharing many of the concerns that noble Lords have expressed about the Bill, I welcome the fact that it gives us a chance to really think about professional skills and how this whole area of issues relates to immigration, education and our skills agenda. We can learn and think about three things in this debate. First, this is a chance to assess where we are with Brexit. Secondly, this is a chance to debate that intersection between immigration policy, professional recognition and overseas development assistance, which I will come back to. Thirdly, we need to think about the nature of professions in a fast-changing world. There was a reference to one of our professional bodies dating back to the 1850s, and we have organisations that have been set up over many decades. Are our current structures and arrangements fit for the 21st century?

On the first point about the state of Brexit, the Bill is further reminder that it is not done; it has barely even started, in terms of dealing with the fallout. It is interesting that, as we debate, there is the woe of the laborious swapping of the EU-based CE markings for the post-Brexit British-based UKCA markings, involving the retesting of thousands of construction products, many of which the professionals that we are talking about will have to use. We have recently seen the Government acknowledge that they need to extend the period for that because of the complexity, which illustrates our current situation. That complexity has been well highlighted in this debate.

The Government outline how the Bill is intended to replace the EU approach with one that is focused on enabling professional bodies to make bilateral agreements with bodies from other countries. I was going to expand on this point, but the noble Lord, Lord Purvis of Tweed, very successfully outlined the sheer complexity and volume of what we are talking about, so I will not go over that ground again.

We need to know what the Government mean when they talk about opening up global Britain to new trade opportunities in services. That is very much related to how we treat people wanting to come here, which is where immigration rights become particularly relevant. If we create barriers to people coming and providing services here—I am looking at immigration rather than qualifications—then those same barriers will be put up to our service providers when they go to other places. The concept of reciprocity can be very much employed against us if we are draconian in our approach.

We have rightly had a lot of discussion in your Lordships’ House, which I very much support, about the problems that musicians are experiencing in relation to operating within the EU. We should not forget that lots of these problems have been masked by the pandemic, and, as the pandemic becomes less of an issue, we hope, and travel opens up, a lot of these issues will become very much more evident.

I will pick up a few specific points and then come to a general discussion. I think I heard the Minister correctly when he talked about Clause 8 as a potential way of opening up professions and promoting skills development. This caused me to go back and have another look at Clause 8, because I had not really thought of it in those terms. I very much hope that the Minister will be able to reassure me on this point: putting a formal, technical publication on a website will not address our issues around the need for access to professional development, particularly for young people but for all people in the UK.

This is the first chance that I have had to mention an issue that ties with some that the noble Baroness, Lady Fraser of Craigmaddie, raised about professionals needing to work in the UK to confirm their qualifications, reach a certain level, and demonstrate that level. Visa changes in 2010 trapped students coming across for 415 STEM courses and 222 vocational, education and training courses. This meant that for immigration purposes, they were no longer classified as students but instead as workers. The case study that I know most about in this case concerns becoming a RIBA-qualified architect in the UK; students have to work in an approved practice for two years after they have completed their studies and then do a final exam. I have worked with students who were hit extraordinarily hard by that and who simply could not secure the immigration status and therefore a qualification they had paid hundreds of thousands of pounds for, in some cases. I will be asking the Minister whether the Government have really looked at that and how it will relate to the nature of the Bill. It is a complex area.

Another specific point is the relationship with the devolved Administrations. A government document states:

“We will not normally make regulations under these powers in devolved areas without the agreement of the relevant devolved authority.”


Some noble Lords will remember the wrestle that we had with the internal market Bill over the need to protect the independent regulation of teachers on these islands, in relation to the attempt to enforce automatic recognition. In Committee, the Government resisted any claim that there was an issue with that—and then, on Report, they acknowledged that there was a problem and brought in an amendment.

Given what happened with the internal market Bill, I have a direct question that I hope the Minister will be able to answer now: under what abnormal conditions would the Government be likely to impose on the devolved Administrations rules that they opposed?

Very briefly, I share the concerns expressed by the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, and others about the extensive nature of the Henry VIII powers here. The noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, referred to the avalanche of regulations likely to result from this, and I had a picture flash in my head, as I expect many noble Lords did, of that Grand Committee Room in which so many of us have spent so many hours, either physically or virtually, over the last year or so. However, we must also acknowledge how thinly populated, whether physically or virtually, that Grand Committee very often is. We are looking at issues of great complexity and specialist knowledge. There was reference in Oral Questions to the number of Members of your Lordships’ House, but it seems we still do not have enough to fill the Grand Committee Room.

I come now to a couple of broader issues, which tie back to what we have now—the transitional arrangements, particularly those for teaching and nursing, and preferential treatment for Swiss and EEA citizens. The noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, referred to the way in which, over decades, relationships were established across the European Union when we were a member, through knowledge of courses and training systems in different countries. People coming from those countries are now a known quantity. I am particularly concerned about the pressure likely to be put on the professional bodies to deal with a global circumstance—to deal with that level of global complexity. I am particularly concerned, again, about the pressure that might be put on some professions. I am thinking here of the veterinary profession, referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Trees. I know and hear reports about the difficulty in filling positions relating to meat inspection that require veterinary qualifications. These are very skilled and important jobs, crucial to public health. Are we going to see pressure to let people in with skills that we perhaps cannot quantify and do not know about, just because of the need to fill those?

I come now to the philosophical approach, which is where I perhaps most differ from most other noble Lords who have spoken. A lot of the discussion is about Britain’s competitive advantage—how we are better at this than anyone else and how we can sell this to the world. The thesis I would put to your Lordships’ House is that we have a complex, difficult world, with a climate emergency and huge public health dangers, in which what we need are a great many more professionals—trained people in every country on this planet, able to help the human race deal with the challenges we face. So I really want to challenge this approach of competitiveness—of competing with others. I ask the Government again, though perhaps not now, really to consider how we might use these changes being brought in to help professional bodies in other nations, particularly, perhaps, in the global south, to develop their own skills and be able to operate effectively in their own environments. That is in all our interests.

I come back to Covid—no one is safe until everybody is safe. We need good-quality professionals in every country in the world, and we have a gross shortage at the moment. That is perhaps of relevance to our position as chair of COP 26. In the earlier debate, the noble Lord, Lord Goldsmith, talked about the importance of green finance, a fast-developing professional area in which we are likely to see new qualifications and new demands put on existing qualifications. How will the Bill contribute to and assist with all that?

What we need, really, is not an overarching policy that seeks to encourage a brain drain from other nations. We have to acknowledge that young people, and older people, often want to travel, to experience the world and learn from different countries and systems, so that they become better, more skilled professionals from that experience. I come back to immigration policy and taking approaches that do not just say, “We’ll try to nab the best from around the world and get them here, working for us”, but says, “We can take professionals of all different levels of experience and skill, perhaps giving them some experience here, and our professionals can go to other countries and gain experience”. That is a better way forward.

I come to my final two points. The noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, said that she had seen a list of what is covered. Will the Minister share that list with all the participants in this debate? It would be useful to all of us. My particular interest is the position of chartered environmentalist, which I do not believe will be covered but is a formal qualification organised by the Society for the Environment. We come back here to my issue about needing new skills, new professions and new ways of looking at the world, particularly looking at world systems thinking. I would like to see many more chartered accountants who are also chartered environmentalists. We need to see that kind of cross-fertilisation of ideas, and that requires movement. I was having a discussion about this and we were looking back, not just to our time in the EU but further back. Some of the most magnificent structures in the UK—some of our magnificent old churches and cathedrals—were of course often built by teams of masons who came from around Europe. If we think about environmental issues, the quality of our building, Passivhaus and better standards, those things need exchange of skills and knowledge.

Finally, I am very much looking forward to the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Sikka, who will be speaking in a few slots’ time. He will raise this with far more detail and expertise than I can offer. We have heard a lot of talk about how good UK regulation is but, particularly in the financial sector, we have some very serious questions to ask when we look at the issue of financial scandal after financial scandal, which has been the reality of life in the City of London. Members of your Lordships’ House who took part in debates on the Financial Services Act will very much reflect on that. Is this Bill an opportunity to really think about how we can deal with professional qualifications, thinking about not just competence but also ethics and fitness to practise?

Professional Qualifications Bill [HL]

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 9th June 2021 Lords Chamber

I hope the Minister recognises that very serious issues are at stake here. This Bill is very broadly drawn. It applies to a huge area of really important professional standards and qualifications and absolutely requires a framework of consultation and consent to ensure that it actually works.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I put my name down to speak to this group of amendments—the first time I have participated in this Committee—because, as the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, said, they collectively address a basic constitutional principle.

I find myself in the slightly unusual position of standing up to speak in favour of preserving current constitutional arrangements. However, I pick up on the words of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, that what is happening here is a chipping away of devolved powers. I put it to those who wish to see the union continue that squeezing more tightly—squeezing away powers—is the way to ensure that people choose to slip out of its grasp.

I suspect that we might hear the Minister, as we have heard from Ministers in so many other debates on so many different subjects, say: “Don’t worry, we don’t mean any ill, this Government do not mean the wrong thing”. This morning, I was talking about the situation and debate around the potential Australian trade deal—about hormone-laced beef and animal welfare standards—and we said in that context, as in so many others, that words are just words. We need guarantees in a Bill.

All these amendments head in the direction that I would like to see, but I highlight in particular Amendments 41, 42 and 57. The noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, said that his amendment was not absolutely revolutionary, although, as you might expect to hear from me, I rather tend towards the total peaceful revolution. The amendment says that there would have to be a delay before a devolved Administration could be overruled. I question whether there would be any circumstances in which it would be reasonable for a devolved Administration to be overruled. I therefore repeat a question I put at Second Reading, to which I did not get an answer: can the Minister give examples of circumstances in which the Government might feel it right and justified to overrule a ruling from a devolved Administration, where that Administration say “No, these regulations on professional qualifications you are trying to impose are not good enough for us and do not meet our needs”?

In looking at why there might be different rules in different places, the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, pointed to the differences in legal systems, which is one very obvious area—a long-running historic circumstance. But there are also practical differences.

Somebody mentioned driving instructors. Driving in the highlands of Scotland may be very different from driving in most parts of England and there may be good, practical reasons why qualifications may be different in different nations, for obvious reasons, but also, of course, we are very much talking about politics. In something of an aside, the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, referred to Welsh language qualifications for teachers in Wales. These are issues of intense political debate and discussion; they are not merely small, technical issues that can be ironed out by dealing with a few technical measures. These are political decisions that have been made by devolved Administrations who have been given constitutional powers that are supposed to be guaranteed. So it is very clear that we need to see change to what we have currently in the Bill.

The noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, highlighted something I have been puzzling over. At Second Reading, a lot of people questioned the whole issue of the assistance centre, and it is very hard to see how this all fits together for something so complex and difficult. As many noble Lords have said thus far in Committee, this really feels like a severely undercooked Bill; a great deal of work is needed. This is one area where I really believe we have to see change, and if we do not see change from the Government when we get to Report, we will be coming back to this and very much consulting with the devolved nations. We need to see that kind of consultation and involvement, and the first place where we really should be seeing consent from the nations is in their acceptance of the form that the Bill takes.

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

My Lords, like others who have spoken, I strongly support these amendments. I am most grateful for the most comprehensive speech by the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, who laid out clearly what the issues are, both in terms of the constitutional conflict that is in the Bill at the moment, and the consequences of it, and also the consequences for services within Wales. I think these also apply to Scotland, but I should declare an interest as someone who lives and works in Wales—that is the area of my own experience. I ask the Minister to explain quite clearly why the draft of the Bill was given to the Welsh Government only a week before it was published, and why the final version was not seen before it was laid on 12 May. To me, that does not feel like consultation or like any attempt to find a consensus agreement with devolved Administrations at all.

There is a concern that the skills shortages are being linked to the trade policy agenda, and how the new obligations on regulators could be moved and adjusted because they are driven by some trade policy, rather than by the need to ensure that we have safe and effective high-standard services for people within our nation. Although Clause 14 confers regulation-making powers on the appropriate national authority, these are exercisable only concurrently with the Secretary of State and Lord Chancellor. That seems to make it possible that the Secretary of State or Lord Chancellor could legislate in devolved areas and would not be required to obtain the Minister’s consent to those regulations. I understand that the Minister stated in a letter that these powers would not normally be used, but the problem is that once this is in legislation, such assurances do not carry any weight at all, and they are not binding on this or any subsequent UK Government. So it would seem that there are really serious risks, as the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Bennachie, outlined.

In the event that there needs to be regulatory compromise in the interests of trade—I cannot think of a specific example, but I see the confusion and conflict between these two areas—will the Minister confirm that any such regulatory compromise will be notified to Parliament, to ensure that there is parliamentary accountability for any pressure put on to compromise any standards? We have heard in this debate already about the importance of common frameworks, but I will finish by advocating that the Government look very carefully at these amendments and make sure that they do not drive a further wedge between the four nations, because the consequences really do not bear thinking about. I certainly agree with those who say that they create an additional threat to the cohesiveness of the union.

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[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Fookes) (Con)]

I have received a further request to speak from the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, so I will call the noble Baroness now.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I return to the question that I raised both at Second Reading and in my comments today. As the amendment seeks to address, it would appear that there is the possibility of the Government here in Westminster overruling on this. There are currently no requirements to consult or to interact with the devolved Administrations, but as I say, there is a possibility that the Government could overrule—and that indeed is referred to in the guidance for this legislation. I will ask the Minister again: under what circumstances would he imagine that the Government would overrule a devolved Administration if it objected to arrangements?

[Lord Grimstone of Boscobel (Con)]

I thank the noble Baroness for that point. Frankly, I can conceive of no circumstances in the area of professional regulation and the mutual recognition of professional qualifications where the Government would wish to overrule any devolved Administration.

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[Lord Palmer of Childs Hill (LD)]

My Lords, I apologise that what I am going to say has nothing to do with devolved Administrations, because the Bill obviously affects them greatly. The Bill is a law of unintended consequences. It has been described as having been written on the back of an envelope; that envelope has got a lot of writing all over it by now. Amendment 52, to which I have attached my name, is about how many organisations have not realised, and still do not realise, the impact of the Bill. They think: “Professional qualifications; that does not really worry us”. Many noble Lords have had consultations with large organisations, chartered organisations and the like, all of which have given us their opinion. Some have given us their opinion twice because they have changed it. However, small and medium-sized enterprises have not been consulted at all. They have probably not even known that this Bill exists and how it is going to affect them—how it is going to impact on the qualifications of their workforce and whether they are going to have problems with their workforce. When I talk about small and medium-sized enterprises, I mean those with one to 50 employees. If they have problems recruiting now, how will it be afterwards?

As the Bill seems to have been created on the hop, without thinking too much about some of the detail, we now come to trying to mop up a Bill which has not been terribly well thought out in the beginning. We have to look at how to rectify that after the Bill becomes an Act. My Amendment 52 is about the Government committing to there being a report back within 12 months of the Act being passed, particularly in relation to small and medium-sized enterprises. By then, they will have realised the impact of the Bill on the staff they have, do not have, and might have. They might then feel that they can contribute. At that stage, one year hence, perhaps we can put the then Act into a better format. At the moment, it certainly does not seem to have been thought out properly from beginning to end.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, who has tabled a very useful amendment, Amendment 52, to which I was pleased to attach my name. I will speak chiefly to Amendment 55 in my name, but I will also look at the whole range of Amendments 52 to 55, which are all on variations of forms of reports. It might be useful for us to consider whether we can bring this together for Report. There is clearly a desire, coming from a number of different directions, to see a reporting and scrutiny mechanism for the Bill.

I will, however, briefly comment on and commend Amendment 19 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, which refers to consulting consumer interests. That is particularly interesting when we look back to the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Sikka, at Second Reading, and the concerns about the way in which many of our professional services are failing to meet the needs both of those using them and of broader society. There is something useful in the suggestion from the noble Baroness that would be interesting to take forward.

I will now address Amendments 52 to 55, on the issue of reporting back. There has been great discussion in this Committee about the complexity of the Bill, the difficulty of fully understanding its impacts and, indeed, the fact that, with its range of Henry VIII powers, much of the detail will come in later regulation of which we have very limited or no democratic oversight.

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[Lord Lansley (Con)]

My Lords, I am glad to have the opportunity to contribute to this short debate on these amendments. I will say a quick word on each, if I may.

First, on Amendment 16, I entirely support my noble friend’s wish for us to enter into mutual recognition of professional qualifications with the European Union but, as they say, it takes two to tango. We wanted to do it and our policy intention was to do it, but it was not the European Union’s intention to agree to it. I do not doubt that it would remain the Government’s intention to enter into such an agreement if it were possible to do so. I regret that putting this into the Bill does not change any of those circumstances. As it happens, I would not put it into the Bill at this place either. It is essentially contingent upon Clause 3 and our ability to negotiate an international recognition agreement with European Union countries in any case. It may be we have to do it with European Union countries individually, but I agree with the objective. It seems to me that Clause 4 allows regulators to enter into recognition agreements, and that is the mechanism. If the Law Society or anybody else wants to do it, they should seek approval from the Government to enter into such an agreement in that way.

I do not understand why we need Amendment 23 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes. This is about international recognition agreements. It is not specifically about the European Union and it may not apply to European Union member states. It is not required to be consistent with the future relationship with the European Union. All it means is that when we allow the recognition of overseas applicants to our professions, the professional regulators may charge them fees in the way that they charge fees to UK applicants. I think that is perfectly reasonable, so I would not accept that amendment.

On Amendment 47, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, was probably not here when we discussed the Trade (Disclosure of Information) Act 2020, nor when we dealt with similar provisions in the Trade Act 2021. My noble friend on the Front Bench, the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, and I remember those discussions very well.

Supreme Court judgments have determined that where, for example, data protection legislation requires the protection of legislation—and there are specific duties relating to that—if there are other statutory gateways that might create a statutory provision permitting the disclosure of information which could contravene the data protection legislation, the position the court arrived at was that the decision-makers should end up being able to balance the statutory gateway in the additional statute with the originating data protection legislation. That is where it ended up, and that is why “taken into account” is the appropriate language. It would not be “considered a defence”, because that would conclude that it had not been weighed properly in the way that the court expected. It expected these two things to be considered alongside one another. That is where we ended up on the Trade (Disclosure of Information) Act, for reasons I understood then, and as far as I can see, this drafting is absolutely consistent with those pieces of legislation.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I am glad of the opportunity to contribute to this short debate, but I will be brief and forbear commenting on Amendments 23 and 47, as noble Lords have already covered them and I cannot really add anything. I want to speak specifically to Amendment 16 and I thank the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, for tabling it.

I think there should be pressure on the appropriate national authorities in the Bill to seek reciprocal agreements. It is something that certainly needs to be discussed and pushed. Other noble Lords have spoken about the situation of established professionals and the professional bodies. I want to take a moment to think about young people recently qualified, and those young people who have been through such difficult times and who will qualify in the next year or two, for whom there should be the opportunity, as a young professional, to go out and to travel—the European Union countries being the obvious place, being relatively close to home, relatively cheap, et cetera. It is crucial to those young people to have opportunities to stretch their wings, to learn new things and to develop professionally.

We have seen a lot of problems arising as a result of Covid. Covid is being blamed for lack of progress in a great many things, but it has also suppressed demand, and we are going to see a real explosion of demand as it becomes more possible to travel and to move. I will not get started on the great loss of free movement for the people of the UK, but given that we have so curtailed the opportunities for our young people, it is crucial that we do everything possible to open up, or reopen, professional opportunities for people to grow, to develop, to travel. Of course, if the Government do not want to consider this from any other angle, it is obviously of considerable importance if those people return to the UK and work here with those skills or, indeed, if they remain overseas but keep their UK contacts, which will be very important for UK business and professionals.

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[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath [V]]

My Lords, I am glad to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes—I so agree with her. At the moment, Clause 3 gives Ministers a blank sheet to do whatever they wish, and I am afraid that ministerial assurances are not sufficient. One way or another, we need to amend Clause 3.

My principal reason for speaking is to support my noble friend in her Amendments 20 and 21 on skills shortages. It is surely important that any regulatory change is only considered before consultation with the relevant regulators, in the context of how the national body is undertaking work and investment in the domestic sector in order to help alleviate those shortages.

I am particularly interested in workforce issues in the health service and social care. I remind the Minister of a report by the King’s Fund in February this year which said that NHS hospitals, mental health services and community providers were reporting a shortage of nearly 84,000 full-time equivalent staff. Key groups, such as nurses, midwives and health visitors were severely affected. General practice was under strain, with a shortage of 2,500 full-time equivalents, with projections suggesting that this could rise to 7,000 during the next five years if current trends continue.

The regulator for health and social care, the Care Quality Commission, has highlighted workforce shortages as having a direct impact on the quality of care. NHS waiting time standards have been routinely missed for a number of years, which the consequences of Covid will exacerbate.

The Health Foundation, another respected independent institute, says that the UK ranks below the average of high-income OECD countries for the number of practising nurses and the annual number of new nurse graduates relative to its population. Further, about 15% of registered nurses in the UK are trained outside the country—more than double the OECD average.

Workforce shortages are not new in the NHS. They have been a recurring and enduring feature during its 70 years or so. The reasons are complex. A historical reliance on international recruitment may be part of the story. A bias in the UK towards focusing on the Exchequer cost of training doctors and nurses—which is expensive—but not on the cost associated with the failure to train enough staff is another factor. More broadly, workforce shortages are totemic of the short-termism that dominates national policy-making under this Government.

The noble Lord, Lord Patel, will speak at the end of this debate. I hope he mentions his House of Lords committee report from 2017. It argued that the absence of any comprehensive, national, long-term strategy to secure the appropriate skilled, well-trained and committed workforce that the health and care system will need during the next 10 to 15 years represented

“the biggest internal threat to the sustainability of the NHS.”

Amendments 20 and 21 post the way for a national authority to be required to publish a report on how skill shortages are being met and how we are investing domestically to address this shortage and upskill existing staff. I hope the Minister will be sympathetic.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I shall speak chiefly to Amendments 20 and 21 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, to which I have attached my name. These amendments are also supported by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, and the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, which gives them both cross-party and non-party backing. I have mentioned that all noble Lords received a letter yesterday from the noble Lord, Lord Grimstone, and the noble Baroness, Lady Berridge, with her Department for Education hat on, about the Bill and the skills strategy. Its second paragraph says:

“Let me reassure you the Bill is not a short cut to addressing skills development for the UK.”


We can see that the Government have really understood some of the deep concerns that have been expressed by your Lordships’ House about this Bill.

The letter makes reference to the Skills and Post-16 Education Bill. I am not going to start its Second Reading now, although we have to look at whether ladening people with more debt is the answer to our skills shortage.

Another sentence in the second last substantive paragraph of this letter says:

“To meet demand across certain regulated professions, we need appropriately qualified professionals from both domestic and overseas sources.”


In relation to Amendments 20 and 21 and my earlier Amendment 25, do the Government accept that, particularly for certain key—basic, you might say—professions central to our health and well-being, such as nurses and doctors as a general category, we should be training at least enough medical professionals to meet our needs? That sentence would suggest that that is not something that the Government accept.

I come briefly to a couple of details about these amendments, particularly Amendment 21, which is quite valuable and perhaps adds more than my Amendment 51. They highlight important issues, one of which is in subsection (d), which asks for a report on the number of the professionals in the group being considered who are female and male. It is important that we highlight gender disparities. There has been a lot of discussion about medical professions, but I have interest in both the farming and the building and engineering areas, where we have huge skills shortages and there are very serious gender disparities in recruitment.

As I listened to the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, talking about the complexities of modern medical approaches, I was thinking of some of the engineers I have been speaking to recently about the complexity of building ventilation, something that Covid-19 has very much brought into focus and which we clearly need to be thinking a great deal more about. There is a high level of complexity and a high level of skill is required; you have to understand each individual room and each individual climatic environment. It is a very complex area and requires very high levels of skills and training. I think also that when we are thinking about agriculture—we will be talking about this in the Environment Bill and in the agriculture Bill—we are talking about agri-ecological approaches and agriforestry approaches, not just one field of monoculture that you whack the plough over and you whack the sprayer over, but very complex management of ecosystems that requires a very high degree of skills that we simply do not have now. It requires training and may require people being brought in.

I also want to highlight, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, did, retention rates. Of course, nursing is the obvious area, but there is also a big issue in medicine that needs to much more attention. This is a really important amendment. The support for it demonstrates that, as does the Government reaction, but I think we need a much clearer picture of what the Government’s overall approach is. Are they determined to meet the challenge of training enough people for our needs?

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

My Lords, I am pleased to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, again, and to follow up the points she made about skills shortages. We spoke in an earlier debate about the formula in Clause 2 relating to the condition that there is, in effect, unmet demand. I think that at the time I expressed the view that it was unsatisfactory to define that by reference to unreasonable delay and higher charges. This gives us another opportunity to look at that. I think there is merit in the formula in Amendment 21; I just think we may need to develop it a little and make it very clear that in Clause 2—Section 2, as it will be—where a Minister or the appropriate national authority is considering regulations, the condition is that there is unmet demand in that profession. What is meant by that?

The letter that the Minister sent to the Delegated Powers Committee last week said:

“The Government plans to consider various factors in determining ‘unmet demand’, and further detail on our approach is provided in the Government’s policy statement that accompanies the Bill.”


Well, the policy statement, in a very curious paragraph, says:

“Our proposed framework is intended to enable professions to meet the demands placed on them in all parts of the UK without undue cost or delay.”


In that particular context, the cost and delay appear to relate to the cost and delay of the regulators. It is rather strange.

The policy statement goes on to say that where they make these determinations, “Considerations for” what they refer to as “priority professions”—in other words, where there is demand for skills from overseas—

“will include: whether the profession is on the shortage occupation list; vacancy levels; workforce modelling and skills forecasting; and whether there are other ways that professions might address shortages … We will allow for these determinations to evolve”.

Well, some of those factors are indeed those that the noble Baroness has included in Amendment 21—not completely, but I think we are getting there. So I suggest that the route down which we should go on Report is to amend Clause 2 to say “These are the various factors that appropriate national authorities should consider”. It would not be an exhaustive list but of course, in doing so, they should also consult the regulators and the professions in relation to this.

Professional Qualifications Bill [HL]

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 14th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Trees (CB) [V]]

My Lords, since this is my first contribution to this Committee stage, I thank the Minister for his personal letter to me after Second Reading addressing my concerns about the Bill. He is always courteous and meticulous in responding and I sincerely appreciate that.

However, I still have certain concerns. At Second Reading, I asked two main questions. One was whether the Bill would debar relevant regulators from requiring certain applicants—where no regulator recognition agreement has been set—to sit the UK regulators’ own examination or assessment procedures. I commend the Government and thank the Minister that the Government’s own amendments, brought in with regard to Clause 1, have made it clear that this is not the case.

However, the other question and my concern relating to Clause 3 remain. Why is there a need for a clause in the Bill connecting professional recognition to trade agreements? It leads to a genuine concern that Clause 3 will pressurise regulators into relaxing standards. That concern remains, so I will consider it in some detail

A major purpose of the Bill is to give regulators powers to reach mutual recognition agreements or other methods to enable overseas professionals to register and practise in the UK. The Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons—and I declare my interest as a fellow and former president—and the healthcare professions, particularly the General Medical Council, as my noble friend Lord Patel has mentioned, already have these powers, and one wonders how many of the 50 or so other regulators in the UK do not have them. A question I raised at Second Reading still stands: why not give such regulators the powers they currently lack and leave it at that? Why link regulatory recognition to international agreements?

If we look at the precise wording of Clause 3—and I have not added any words, just subtracted some—Clause 3(1) states:

“The appropriate national authority may by regulations make … provision … for … implementing any international recognition agreement to which the United Kingdom is a party.”


Clause 3(4) continues:

“An ‘international recognition agreement’ means so much of any international agreement … for … the recognition of overseas qualifications or overseas experience for … determining whether individuals are entitled to practise in the United Kingdom”.


I am not a lawyer, but this translates to me as meaning that the Government can implement an agreement to recognise whether individuals can practise in the UK. There is no mention in Clause 3 of involvement or consultation, let alone agreement, with the relevant regulatory authority in the UK. That is my amateur interpretation but the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes—I hope I am not pre-empting her—put it more bluntly at Second Reading:

“The dodgy bit of the Bill is Clause 3, which allows the Government to override existing approaches and procedures for the recognition of non-UK qualifications if they have been covered in a trade treaty.”—[Official Report, 25/5/21; col. 931.]


However, as we have heard already from the noble Lord, Lord Fox, and others, that is not all. The Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, in its report on the Bill, had plenty to say about Clause 3. The committee’s concerns are different from mine but are none the less serious and pertinent. Its report notes that Clause 3 gives Ministers broad powers by regulations, including Henry VIII powers to amend primary legislation, without conditions. The report considers and rejects the justifications for this in the Explanatory Memorandum of the Bill and concludes that

“clause 3 represents an inappropriate delegation of power and should be removed from the Bill.”

It seems to me that Clause 3 adds nothing to the reasonable and positive elements of the Bill to enable regulators to have greater ability to recognise, by the means they so determine, overseas applicants for registration to practise in the UK or to ensure that the regulators have such processes and that they communicate them publicly to facilitate overseas applications.

There are serious concerns about the potential that Clause 3 gives the Government to determine or influence the process of professional recognition in the UK and serious concerns from the DPRR Committee about the powers this clause gives the Government to amend primary legislation. I argue that, collectively, these facts support the view that Clause 3 should not stand part of the Bill, which I support.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I want to put myself on the record as one of those who would have signed the noble Lord’s amendment, had there been space. I again draw attention to the way in which our systems, with the limit of four signatures, no longer allow a full representation of the range of views in your Lordships’ House. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Fox, that should we get to a vote at a later stage, he has the support of the Green group in this matter of Clause 3.

This morning, in my continuing efforts to spread news about what happens in your Lordships’ House to the general public, I wrote what I believe is the first non-specialist press article on the Professional Qualifications Bill, in the Yorkshire Bylines. In it, I described the Bill collectively as a “massive power grab” by the Government, and I believe that Clause 3 is the key part of that power grab, as a number of noble Lords have already indicated.