Future UK-EU Relationship on Professional and Business Services (EU Committee Report)

Lord Hope of Craighead Excerpts

Thursday 22nd July 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hope of Craighead (CB) [V]]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Donaghy, and to congratulate her on securing this debate at last. I also pay tribute to her and her sub-committee for the work they did putting together such an excellent report on this crucial issue. The debate has been much delayed, but that delay has not taken anything away from its importance. The message that the report was designed to convey about the contribution that the professional and business sectors make to our economy, and the importance of unimpeded access to the EU, has lost none of its force. It is just as relevant today, and so is the importance for the Government to understand the needs of these sectors and to do what they can to support them. It was already clear when the report was published in October 2020 that there were fundamental differences between the UK and the EU on the issue of mutual recognition. Apparently, negotiations were still continuing when the Government published their response on 7 December, but their failure to reach agreement was plain for all to see when the TCA was published on 24 December.

The noble Lord, Lord Grimstone of Boscobel, explained where we are now when he was winding up for the Government at Second Reading of the Professional Qualifications Bill on 25 May. He said that the UK had proposed ambitious arrangements on professional qualifications recognition, but that the EU did not choose to engage with them. He said:

“We took the horse to water but it refused to drink”.—[Official Report, 25/5/21; col. 975.]


He recognised that UK regulators will now have to form their own professional specific agreements, which will take time and effort, and that this why the Government stand ready to help. I hope that this is still the case.

Regrettable though the situation is, we must move on. We cannot turn the clock back. At least we have the TCA and the possibility of some form of agreement in the future. The Professional Qualifications Bill is another step forward. It will create the framework that is needed on our side for mutual recognition. The question for the Minister is: what more can the Government do now, both here and in the member states, to provide advice and help to the regulators as they seek to pursue and develop recognition agreements with their European counterparts? The situation we are in was their creation. Those who work in these sectors, many of them small businesses, as the noble Baroness pointed out, are entitled to look to the Government for that support.