Professional Qualifications and Services (Amendments and Miscellaneous Provisions) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Monday 14th September 2020 Grand Committee

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for presenting the regulations to the Grand Committee. In so far as they go, I welcome them. It is good that we are holding out the hand of friendship and continuity to those with professional qualifications from the countries concerned to allow them to continue to live and work in the United Kingdom.

My question is a simple one and concerns what will happen in the event of no deal on 1 January to those with professional qualifications who currently enjoy mutual recognition in other member states and across the EEA and Switzerland. Might we have an extremely messy situation on 1 January in respect of current practitioners? They could be in some of the professions that my noble friend the Minister described; they could be lawyers, architects, dentists, doctors—the list goes on.

I declare a personal interest—I have followed this matter for some time, as my noble friend will be aware—in that I was able to avail myself of mutual recognition as a practising EU lawyer. I worked in two firms in Brussels for a period in the late 1970s and early 1980s. One has only to look at the difficulty experienced in the different professions and their branches and at how many years it took in some cases to reach the mutual recognition from which all of us have benefited in the EU, the EEA and Switzerland. In the case of architects, the directive took 21 years to agree, yet when we look at the stellar contribution made across these countries by those such as the Rogers design team, we realise that it was worth the difficulty and the time in reaching agreement.

In the event that we do not have a deal on 1 January and the position is unclear, what will the position be for those from the United Kingdom who wish to practise their profession in these countries? I would be grateful for a reply from my noble friend.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Bates) (Con)]

I now call the next speaker, the noble Lord, Lord Loomba. Lord Loomba? We will perhaps come back to the noble Lord; we are having some technical difficulties. I call the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan.