Professional Qualifications Bill [HL]

Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 25th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

First, I also welcome my noble friend Lady Blake to our Front Bench, where she has immediately made an impact and demonstrated the impact she will continue to make. Ministers, beware.

As the Minister foretold, the debate has heard experience from across the architectural, medical, veterinary, accounting and even the sports, dental and legal worlds, raising various issues, but interestingly, one first raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes: why do we need this Bill? She said it in the meeting we had before this all began, and that made us start thinking. The noble Lord, Lord Trees, mused that the Bill was

“a solution in search of a problem”,

adding nothing to the powers that already exist—in his profession, to recognise vets from other countries that the college wants to recognise. The noble Lords, Lord Ribeiro and Lord Patel, the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, the GMC, the BMA and the Professional Standards Authority all question whether the Bill is needed in their sector, given that health regulators have a long history of overseeing regulation, and they are worried that the Bill might jeopardise that system and risk patient safety.

As we have heard, the Bill does not define which regulators will be covered, although the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, has been sent the list. We are delighted but, like the noble Lord, Lord Fox, we have not seen it; I am sure that it is on its way to us. The Minister said that the Bill is about only regulators set up in legislation and not those set up by a royal charter. The ICAEW would therefore not be covered, although it sounds as if the FRC and the new ARGA would be. Can he confirm that? Also, will it cover the Law Society, the SRA, the Faculty of Advocates and some others? We need to know what this Bill covers.

I should be clear, because I have some questions about it, that there are many pluses in the Bill, enabling statutory regulators, where they so desire, to enter mutual recognition agreements. As noted by the SRA, this could maximise opportunities for trade in professional services, while the Law Society said that it could assist in regulator-to-regulator reciprocal agreements by going rather beyond what a precedent-based FTA could do.

As has been said many times, legal services are central to our exports and investment. They enable their clients to make the most of opportunities across the globe. As the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, said, the Law Society hopes that legal services will be at the forefront of forthcoming trade negotiations so that we can ensure that our lawyers operating overseas can carry out a range of functions, including as arbitrators, and partner locally based lawyers. A similar point was made by my noble friend Lord Davies of Brixton in relation to actuaries. There is potential there to help some of our crucial export services. However, there are questions. I think that they cover four areas: skill shortages; trade deals; standards and the independence of regulators; and parliamentary scrutiny.

On skills shortages, while attracting overseas talent has been vital to our public sector, it would be wrong to continue to depend on importing qualified staff where we should be building up our own skill base to correct any shortage. We do not want to see this Bill used as a substitute for the Government investing in professional training. If we lack vets or nurses, we should train up our own—with the adequate resources to do so—rather than steal from other countries, as the noble Baroness, Lady Watkins, mentioned.

There is also a question of how the Government will decide whether there is a shortage. What involvement will there be with the professions and service providers? The noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, touched on that point and mentioned the need for consultation on both this and broader issues. Will the Government undertake to publish the data, modelling and forecasts that they use when deciding whether they think there is a specific skills shortage? Will that definition be for a whole profession or just a particular specialism, as was raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Fraser? Furthermore, do we risk amending our regulation system for a short-term skills shortage, because we will be using legislation rather than individual cases to make up for any shortfall?

The Bill gives powers to Ministers to compel regulators of specified professions to offer unilateral recognition routes for all countries, subject to meeting the requisite standards. I will return to that power shortly.

Turning to trade deals, Clause 3 is a major concern, as we have heard. It requires a supposedly independent regulator to set up a process for authorising people from other jurisdictions to practise here—not because the regulator thinks it is the right thing to do, nor because we need more professions to fill a skills gap, which is dealt with in a different part of the Bill, but as a consequence of an international trade deal. As the SRA says, we must retain public confidence that professionals are appropriately qualified, with regulators able to set standards and make autonomous, independent decisions. As we have heard from a number of speakers, recognition will need to cover knowledge, skills and experience—not simply qualifications.

The Law Society has raised the specific question that the Bill could allow foreign Bars to challenge the independence of UK solicitors and barristers by possibly allowing the Government to make decisions on equivalence—the grounds for challenge from foreign Bars, because it would be regulated by the Government rather than independently. We trust that dialogue with the SRA and the BSB will produce an amendment to safeguard against this.

In addition to whether regulators should be obliged to enter into agreements with countries designated by the Government is the question of whether, for example, as with the GMC, the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons could be forced to recognise vets from India or Mexico—I think those were the examples given. Each country has dozens of vet schools, every one of which would have to be assured if this is not being done by requalification in this country, as it could not give blanket coverage to a whole country’s independent vet or medical schools.

Surely we must agree that no regulator should be forced, because of pressure for a trade deal—we see those pressures in what is happening to farmers in trying to get a deal with Australia—to extend its recognition beyond what it wants, with a consequent risk of reduction in standards. IPReg, for example, is very happy to recognise qualifications from countries of its choice but would not want to be forced to enter into reciprocal agreements with any particular country decided on by the Government. Which future trade agreements that the Government are already looking at are expected to contain MRPQ clauses with specific routes for professions or an obligation on regulators to instigate a route to recognition? If the Minister cannot answer today—which I would understand—I hope he can write to all Members participating so that we know what they are likely to be looking at.

Might it be better to leave any new mutual recognition agreements just to separate, stand-alone, bilateral, regulator-to-regulator recognition agreements, perhaps in parallel to, but not as a requirement of, an FTA with a third country? Forcing regulators to be covered by an international agreement carries significant risks, not least to standards and consumer protection—the very purpose for which statutory regulation takes place.

We note that there is a recognition arrangements team in the department to help regulators pursue agreements with overseas counterparts. That sounds helpful, but can the Minister assure us that that team does not amount to pressure on a regulator to keep the DIT happy?

While the Government have the admirable objective of maintaining existing levels of public and consumer protection and professional standards, how does this sit alongside their objective of using this to support the international trade agenda? Those two may be in conflict rather than in harmony. To reassure us, will the Minister undertake—we might even seek to have this written into the Bill—to ensure that the Department for International Trade will consult with relevant regulators, at the very least before it finalises a trade deal, but hopefully at the point it sets its objectives for one?

This brings us to standards and to the independence of regulators. We will seek certainty that nothing in the Bill undermines high standards of health, public safety or consumer protection and that language can continue to be tested. It is vital that regulators remain independent, as the noble Lord, Lord Ribeiro, and others stressed, and that the Government do not force them to accept professional qualifications. Indeed, we might even look to see whether the Bill could strengthen the independence of regulators. It will not be a surprise to some people in the House to learn that I would like to add a requirement that user or consumer representatives should be added to the councils of the various regulators. I will give it a try.

As we have heard, the medical world has specific concerns. The BMA stresses that patient safety must be prioritised over mobility, and certainly over the Government’s desire for trade deals. It worries that the Government’s emphasis on paper qualifications overlooks ensuring that doctors have the right skills and relative and up-to-date experience before they work here.

As my noble friend Lord Hunt said, the Bill allows the Secretary of State to require the GMC to assess whether someone with a particular overseas qualification is “substantially the same” as a UK qualification, and thus able to practise here. As we have heard today, that means that international medical graduates would have an automatic right to practise on the same basis as home graduates, without any further checks that they are safe to practise. This is clearly unacceptable, but we very much welcome what the Minister said in opening and his undertaking that the Government will bring forward an amendment to Clause 1. We trust that it will cover all the points of worry. We hope that it will be agreed and, if you like, signed off by the GMC before it comes to us.

I turn to parliamentary scrutiny. Along with my noble friend Lord Hunt, the noble Baronesses, Lady Meacher and Lady Noakes, and the noble Lord, Lord Palmer of Childs Hill, we are concerned that substantial changes to the law will be made through delegated powers rather than in the Bill. I rather thought we had gone way beyond this in how we make law. We put up with a lot of it when we were coming out of the EU because of the rush; I do not think there is any excuse for this now. At the very least, we ask the Minister to commit to publishing draft or pre-draft statutory instruments covering the priority professions before Report. This will be as important for the devolved authorities and devolved regulators as for all the other related regulators and Parliament itself.

With regard to the devolved authorities, because work is already ongoing on this, can the Minister confirm that Clause 9 does not undermine the framework work going on? Can he respond to the Law Society of Scotland’s call for more forthright commitment to respecting the distinct nature of legal services, perhaps linking what is in the Bill with the policy statement?

It is clear that parts of the Bill are necessary and welcome, and we endorse the objective of maintaining consumer, public and patient safety. We want to see our legal and accountancy professions trade for Britain, and we want our UK professionals to be able to work abroad, but this does not mean we will sweep the Bill straight through Committee. There are changes we will want to see made and improvements to be considered. We look forward to working with the Minister on this over the coming weeks, and in the meantime would be grateful for a letter responding to any of the points raised that he does not have time to cover now.