Professional Qualifications Bill [HL]

Lord Fox Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 25th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Fox (LD)]

My Lords, given the United Kingdom’s position on the G7, we should in fact be a net skills exporter rather than an importer. It is to be regretted that this is not within the scope of the Bill and not the discussion that we are having, because that is at the heart of the reason that many of these clauses are in place. I have less regret that I will not be talking about accountants or auditors.

There is more than a smack in this Bill of, “I’m from the Government and I’m here to help you.” As pointed out by the last speaker and by the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, the very existence of the assistance centre rings alarm bells to some extent. We have to examine how—if indeed the Government are to help—the Bill will cause things to be better. It is very difficult to tell. I am not in the Minister’s address book. Unlike the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, I did not receive the important letter that revealed all about this Bill. There are so many unknowns, not least because its ultimate operation is masked in the cloak of invisibility as given by the upcoming secondary legislation that we have yet to see. This is a skeleton Bill. I welcome the comments of others on this subject, particularly those of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath. I hope that the spirit of his words will be turned into actions by Her Majesty’s loyal Opposition as we get further through the Bill.

No one denies—and the Government seem to have to assert—that there is an advantage of diversity contributed by professionals brought in from overseas, but I would refute the idea implicit in the Bill that EU and EEA membership inhibited our international recruitment aims. As was so eloquently acknowledged by the noble Baroness, Lady Blake, you have only to look at the non-European professionals and the roles they play in the National Health Service to see that it was perfectly possible within the past regime to bring many international non-European professionals into this country.

However, it is not clear what effects the Bill will have on the future recruitment of healthcare professionals. Indeed, the Government themselves have acknowledged that the healthcare sector may need a transition period to phase this in. It would be helpful if the Minister could explain: first, why is that necessary? Secondly, is the mysterious and rapid change already coming to the Bill aimed at helping that? And, thirdly, if it is affecting the healthcare sector, why will it not affect other core sectors to come?

My noble friend Lord Purvis brought up the common travel area, particularly the Swiss agreement around that. More generally, the Government have stated:

“The revocation of the 2015 Regulations does not affect commitments under the CTA”


—the common travel area. However, I observe that the Government also said that the Northern Ireland protocol would not help to create a border down the Irish Sea, so we have to be careful about what we take from this.

In the Explanatory Notes to the Bill, the Government say:

“both the UK and Irish governments have agreed to ensure there are adequate routes to recognition for qualified professionals across the UK and Ireland.”

What is the nature of these routes, when might we see them emerge on a road map and how will this be taken forward? There are real questions about professionals who get recognised in countries that are not recognised in the EU; how will they be able to practise in Ireland? Could the Minister give a detailed response to that particular question, perhaps by letter?

The Government have said that the interim system has to go because it was perceived as offering preferential treatment to professionals with Swiss and EEA qualifications. As such, to handle this perception, the Bill rounds down access, rather than rounding it up: it knocks back market access and throws away the potential services of many highly skilled EEA people before it has established a positive route from other countries. I suggest that this is not in the best interests of United Kingdom citizens.

From my noble friends Lady Randerson and Lady Garden, we heard how hard it is to implement reciprocal arrangements—it is enormously difficult. We only have to look at the numbers of different professions and countries, and multiply them, to see that there are thousands of potential negotiations. I am very keen to hear how the Government see the current flow of professionals. Will the list that my noble friend Lord Purvis talked about get longer—will more professions be added to it?

We then talk about trade the other way. The noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, sandwiched, between his enthusiasm and his advocating for the accountancy profession, a really stark warning for the Government. He warned clearly that the service sector in this country cannot operate if it does not establish recognition of the professional qualifications of the people who deliver the profit in it.

When the Minister very kindly met with me and colleagues, I asked about that mutual recognition process: why, I asked, would a particular organisation in a particular country let in more professionals to compete? This follows the suspicions that the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, has on the subject of some professionals blocking out others. The Minister’s view was that, by removing this reciprocal arrangement, we will encourage the Europeans to negotiate. First, I was interested in, and appreciated, the contribution of the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, because we were told that we were already having those discussions, but it seems that we were not. Perhaps the Minister could clarify that issue: have we actually discussed with our former European colleagues how we could have mutual recognition? If not, why not—because the Minister in charge said that we were?

Looking forward, the Government are of course not leaving things to chance on the supply side. We have heard that they are taking on powers to create a demand-led approach to the issue of a shortage of professionals in this country. I am interested in the words “demand-led”, and I wonder why they were used. I am suspicious that it is to try to allay the fears of people who associate this with immigration—I note the conversation earlier—and that this is designed to ameliorate the fears of people who feel that this will lead to mass migration. This a folly and not needed. We need to talk properly about what skills we need in this country.

The Government are deciding to take on themselves the ability to assess demand for professionals. We have heard from other speakers that that is a very fraught route. There are known knowns: we know that if the Government are to allow hundreds of thousands of houses to be built in the British shires, we will need more quantity surveyors. But there are unknowns—for example, the fintech industry. The fintech industry was built by people who were here before there was a fintech industry. If there had been a quota for fintech people, there would have been no fintech. There is an innovation-stifling nature within the centre of the Bill. For a Government who have abandoned industrial strategy to start to look at demand management of skills is really quite ironic.

I call on the Minister to address what, in reality, the Government can do about demand. It is not clear what the reaction of the Government would be if the regulators failed to deliver sufficient professionals of the nature that the Government had decided that demand required. I had a response from the Minister that said that if they did not do this, they would be breaking the law. But did not do what? Meet a quota or put the right words on a website? We need much more clarity around what the Government can really do about changing the flow of professionals. My sense is that this is overreaching and will underdeliver, and that it might be better to limit the ambition early. It is interesting that a Government, particularly fronted by a Minister who has so obviously thrived in an open and international market, should look at how skills are delivered in this micromanagement-centred and government-centred way. I would be interested in his personal view on this.

Many Ministers have mentioned the cavalcade— I think my noble friend Lady Randerson used “avalanche”—of secondary legislation. The contribution of the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, was very helpful, and we look forward to the committee’s full report. The Government will have to think again, and we will obviously play our part in helping that thought to emerge.

My noble friends Lord Purvis, Lady Randerson and Lord Palmer of Childs Hill have all raised other important points. If the Minister is hearing some of these arguments multiple times, it is because the same issues were thrown up on the then Trade Bill and internal market Bill. They are an inevitable consequence of the route we have been forced down by the trade deal we have with the EU. I have said on many occasions that free trade is facilitated by the ability of people to ply their services globally. I have proposed amendments that would cause that to happen. To be fair, the Minister and the Bill use the language of free trade—dare I say, liberally—but in reality, when this Bill gets assent, it will establish a system that offers less free trade, less mobility and more associated paperwork. If the Government are here to help, perhaps the Minister can explain, in detail, how this really helps British business and citizens live their lives in this country.