Professional Qualifications Bill [HL]

Baroness Randerson Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 22nd June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

My Lords, I start by apologising to the House, as I wrongly said previously that nursing associates are not regulated. Actually, the Nursing and Midwifery Council now holds the register of those who meet those criteria.

In moving Amendment 56A, I am grateful to my noble and learned friend Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd for his support. We have already had a discussion about exactly which regulators are affected by this Bill. There are two regulating bodies based in Wales that this legislation would affect: the Education Workforce Council and Social Care Wales. There is no valid reason whatever that the Westminster Government should have a say over these bodies, as they operate in wholly devolved areas.

The letter previously referred to, which was sent by the noble Lord, Lord Grimstone, to the noble Baronesses, Lady Hayter of Kentish Town and Lady Noakes, concerning the professions and regulators within scope of the Bill, exemplifies a key concern that my amendment tries to address. The letter failed to clarify that the Education Workforce Council is a Wales-only regulator, but also failed even to mention Social Care Wales. This was clearly a mistake, as we have now heard, and I hope it has been corrected, but it also flags a wider issue: Wales and Welsh bodies are clearly an afterthought for this Government when considering this Bill.

In its current state, I fail to see how the Welsh Government would recommend that the Senedd consent to the Bill, unless a number of issues are satisfactorily resolved. Clauses 1, 3 to 6, 8 and 10 confer various regulation-making powers for different purposes on the “appropriate national authority”. Of particular and cross-cutting concern to all these clauses is the way “appropriate national authority” has been defined by Clause 14. This means that the powers of the Welsh Ministers, along with those of the other devolved Governments, are exercisable concurrently by the Secretary of State or Lord Chancellor. Hence, the Secretary of State or Lord Chancellor could make provision, through regulations, on matters that fall within devolved competence.

In addition, as we have heard, Clause 13 contains provisions that mean that the powers to make regulations, conferred by Clauses 1 to 6, include powers to modify primary legislation, such as UK Acts of Parliament and Senedd Acts, as well as secondary legislation. The combination of concurrent functions and Henry VIII powers means that the Secretary of State could exercise these regulation-making powers to amend Senedd Acts and regulations made by Welsh Ministers. While Ministers may claim they do not intend to use these concurrent powers in areas of devolved competence, the wording of the Bill does not reflect this sentiment. The Secretary of State and Lord Chancellor would be able to exercise these powers in devolved areas without requiring any consultation with, or consent from, Welsh Ministers. That is clearly unacceptable.

Clause 14(5) requires Welsh Ministers, when exercising the regulation-making powers in the Bill, to obtain the consent of a Minister of the Crown when such regulations would, if made in an Act of the Senedd, require the Minister of the Crown to consent under Schedule 7B to the Government of Wales Act 2006. This effectively imports the restrictions imposed by paragraphs 8 to 11 of Schedule 7B to the 2006 Act into the regulation-making process. This restriction is unique to Welsh Ministers’ powers; Scottish and Northern Ireland Ministers are not subject to a corresponding restriction. However, it is not without precedent—a similar restriction was imposed by the Fisheries Act 2020.

What does this mean in practice? It means that the Welsh Ministers would, when making regulations using the powers conferred by this Bill, need to obtain the consent of a Minister of the Crown in certain circumstances, including where, for example, the regulations modified or removed a function exercisable by a reserved authority. Further, the removal of this provision via a future Act of the Senedd would also engage the Minister of the Crown’s consent requirements. Again, this is not a suitable state of affairs. Therefore, I must question whether some of these powers are even necessary.

For example, the power conferred by Clause 1 enables the “appropriate national authority” to make regulations that require specified regulators to consider and assess whether qualifications and experience gained outside the UK should be treated as if they were specified UK qualifications for the purposes of practising that profession in the UK. Both the Education Workforce Council and Social Care Wales already have powers enshrined by Welsh Ministers in Welsh legislation to recognise international qualifications and determine whether they are equivalent to UK qualifications, so I ask the Minister why the Bill now gives powers to override this. The solution, I suggest, is simply to accept my amendment.

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, I am pleased to have the opportunity to support the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay. I shall take a moment to express my concern about the chaotic state of this Bill. I will not waste more of the time of this House by repeating what the noble Baroness said, but the omission of the social care regulator from the Minister’s letter was such an obvious error. I cannot help thinking that a lot of work still needs to be done to make this Bill ready to pass into legislation.

As the noble Baroness has said, as the Bill is drafted, the regulator confers a suite of regulation-making powers on the appropriate national authority. Welsh Ministers are that authority for the devolved professions and have a right to be fully recognised as that, not to have to ask for permission from the UK Government nor to have their existing powers overridden by this legislation. According to the Bill, those powers are to be exercised concurrently with the Secretary of State and Lord Chancellor, who could legislate in devolved areas and, as the Bill stands, would not need the consent of Welsh Ministers on those regulations.

It is worth adding that the situation in Wales is always slightly more complex, because of the nature of Welsh devolution; it started from a bad place, has moved forward significantly in gaining clarity and logic, but is not 100% there yet. There are areas where Welsh Ministers have some Executive powers that are not reflected in the legislative powers of the Senedd, and that has to be recognised.

The reassurance that we received from the noble Lord the Minister—I realise that the noble Baroness, Lady Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist, will respond to this group of amendments—that the power to override Welsh Ministers would not normally be taken is of no great reassurance to us, because the UK Government have said that in the past and then overridden the decision of the Senedd or the wishes of Welsh government Ministers.

This is a serious issue for the Government and this Bill. I warn them that, as the Bill stands, the Government will not get consent from the devolved Administrations or the Senedd in Wales. They have to take that into account as, to get this on to the statute book, they must start by overriding Welsh Ministers and Senedd powers.

[Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd (CB) [V]]

My Lords, the issue on which I speak will be brief and parallels what I said earlier on Clause 13. It is important to keep this Bill as defined as possible. This amendment tries to do that by forcing the Government to explain why the relatively simple issues on Wales cannot be dealt with in the Bill. If there is a real need for the consent of Ministers of the Crown for Welsh Ministers to exercise powers, can a reason be given?

As the Minister knows from her own experience, the Welsh devolution settlement is extremely complicated, and all this part of the Bill does is make it even more complicated again. I can see no reason why the consent of Ministers of the Crown is required for just two regulators in Wales. Therefore, if there is no real need for these powers, this clause should not be in the Bill. Otherwise, I entirely agree with what has been said by the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, and my noble friend Lady Finlay of Llandaff. I hope the Government can explain why this clause is needed and, if there is no satisfactory explanation, remove it.

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Moved by

[Baroness Randerson]

58: Clause 15, page 11, leave out lines 10 to 13
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would mean all regulations made under the Act are subject to the affirmative procedure.

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 58 in my name and that of the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett. This is about as modest an amendment as one could possibly imagine. It simply requires that all regulations that flow from the Bill are made by the affirmative procedure. The Government have acknowledged that most of the substantive changes to the law envisaged by the Bill are to be made by delegated powers.

The Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee has drawn our attention to what it sees as significant problems with the Bill in respect of the constitutional principles involved. The noble Lord, Lord Patel, drew our attention to this issue earlier in our debates this afternoon. For instance, the DPRRC draws attention to the Henry VIII power in Clause 1, which gives the Government power to amend primary legislation to make provision about a wide range of issues, including details of the approach to assessing applications from overseas applicants, guidance to regulators on how to assess them, fees to be paid and appeals.

The Government’s excuse is that these changes are to be demand-led, but the DPRRC does not regard that as a justification for Henry VIII powers. Paragraph 20 of its report points out that when those powers will be executed by affirmative procedure, that in itself will provide minimal scrutiny. Paragraph 23 points out that

“Ministers will have no duty to consult before making regulations.”

Clause 3 of the Bill gives Ministers powers to make regulations in connection with the implementation of international recognition agreements—another Henry VIII power and, this time, not subject to any conditions. We can already see the reality of this principle with the very broad agreement made between the UK and Australia in the recent trade deal, which specifies mutual recognition of professional qualifications in some detail.

The Constitution Committee makes the point that there is a long-standing constitutional convention that international agreements that change UK law require an Act of Parliament, so the DPRRC considers that Clause 3 should be removed from the Bill. Clause 4 also contains a Henry VIII power on authorising a regulator to recognise an overseas regulator. I go through this because I am pointing out that, in the face of this barrage of criticism from those in this House whose job is to safeguard the constitutional integrity of the UK, it is a very small request in this amendment that the blizzard of regulations that we can expect to flow from this Bill should be made by the affirmative procedure.

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interest, having in prior years been a long-standing member of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee. I echo the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, that its report on the Bill and the use of secondary legislation makes telling and worrying reading. Before I cover that, I place on record my thanks to my noble friend Lord Grimstone for his response to my speech earlier and the constructive way in which he handled that. Also, it is important for the Committee to place on record that he has sought to catch the mood of the House rather than to counter it by speaking “note rote”. That is a notable parliamentary and diplomatic skill, and he has done it more capably than many Ministers that I have heard in nearly 40 years in both Houses. However, as he knows, that does not negate the challenges that the Government face with this Bill on its passage through the House.

Most of the substantive changes to this Bill are envisaged to be undertaken by the Executive. As the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, has said, there is a creeping growth of secondary legislation. Some of it is understood in the context of the huge number of statutory instruments following Brexit, but both Houses need to review and reverse that process, otherwise we will be in a situation where the balance of power between the Executive and the legislature is out of kilter. Parliament must be consulted. My noble friend Lord Grimstone said that many of the Bill’s aspects would be under rigorous scrutiny with interested parties; it is even more important that they are under rigorous scrutiny with Parliament.

The noble Lords, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath and Lord Patel, when talking about Henry VIII powers, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, on the lack of detailed parliamentary scrutiny, made eloquent contributions to what is relevant not only to the very light-touch but important amendment in the name of my noble friend Lady Sanderson but to the wider use of secondary legislation, because there is a significant difference between negative and affirmative resolution. With negative, there is no requirement to approve the SIs for them to become law, and with the affirmative, there is a far higher degree of scrutiny sought, with the three forms of high and appropriate scrutiny that are well known to every Member of the House. That is why, wherever possible, Parliament should insist that as much as possible is on the face of the Bill, and why resorting to secondary legislation should be kept to an absolute minimum. It is with those comments in mind and made that I believe, not only in the context of Amendment 58 but throughout the Bill, that we need to return on Report to make sure that there is appropriate parliamentary scrutiny throughout.

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[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

I thank all noble Lords who spoke in this short debate. To sum up the situation on the affirmative versus the negative procedure, the reality is that negative instruments slip through this House almost unnoticed. The occasional one might catch the eye of an eagle-eyed Peer who might raise it and turn it into an affirmative procedure, but the vast majority slip through. The procedure is intended for routine things such as renewals year on year, not the kind of procedure envisaged in this legislation. At least we get the opportunity to debate affirmative instruments, although that is done on an “accept it or reject it” basis. We cannot amend them, and it is therefore a pretty blunt instrument. Noble Lords know that the number of affirmative instruments rejected by this House is extremely small.

I join the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Grimstone, for his acceptance that he has to provide greater clarity in response to our criticisms. The noble Baroness, Lady Bloomfield, also indicated that she will write in response to the specific questions from the noble Baroness, Lady Blake. My noble friend Lord Purvis pointed out a lack of clarity about how and why this legislation will operate.

I noted the Minister’s comments about the Australian trade deal. The announcement sets out in detail the issues that will be covered, but not exactly how they will be covered. I read it with great interest. The two Prime Ministers stood there in person and announced it proudly. Is the Minister now saying that this is just a rough sketch of what might be and that we should not rely on this as the brave new future announced to us only a week or so ago?

I conclude by saying that the Bill has come to us far too soon. That view is probably shared by many noble Lords across the Committee. There has been a lack of consultation with the devolved Administrations and the regulators and a lack of research. It shows. The Bill was conceived with absolutely no understanding of the complexity of this process. Going back to Second Reading, my noble friend Lady Garden and I warned that the process of agreeing the mutual recognition of qualifications will take years. We have been arguing about how we set up a system to do that. It has nothing to do with the process of making the agreement on mutual recognition. We are in the calm before the storm on this.

We have a situation where there is uncertainty about who the regulators actually are and there is no recognition of how long it takes to agree the qualifications. This is a truly terrible Bill. I do not say that because I disagree with the principle behind the need for mutual recognition of qualifications. We need to have it, but we have a Bill that has not decided what it is about, how it will do it and why it will have to do it. The noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, said that it is bordering on the absurd, so I urge Ministers to go back to their department to have a long and honest conversation and then either withdraw the Bill and put it out of its misery or at the very least have a delay before Report to give them the opportunity to recharge their batteries and consider what they really want from the Bill. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 58 withdrawn.