Professional Qualifications Bill [HL]

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 9th June 2021 Lords Chamber

The second point concerns the UK legal services market. As this House knows well, this is very valuable to the UK economy, particularly because of the international work it services, both in the UK and by those qualified as English lawyers in overseas countries. It is often important for people to be qualified as English lawyers, given the prevalence of English law in international agreements and standard form contracts. Thus the position of the legal profession, particularly under the Legal Services Act, gives the regulators wide and extensive powers, leaving them to balance the necessary interest involved, particularly the consideration of reciprocal arrangements. It is important that none of these powers is constrained. Can the Minister clarify why recognition of overseas legal qualifications cannot be left to the regulators without the need for the extensive powers in this Bill? If they are needed, they should be very narrowly confined by primary legislation and not left to these sweeping Henry VIII powers.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, as we are at the start of the Committee stage, I declare my interest as a board member of the GMC, although I am speaking on the Bill in a personal capacity.

I support Amendment 1. We have a real problem with the skeletal nature of the Bill and the extensive use of Henry VIII clauses. It is a great pleasure to follow the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, whose powerful intervention illustrated some of the problems. The power in Clause 1 could be used to make provision about a huge range of matters relating to applications to practise a profession. Extensive powers are delegated to Ministers. As the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee has pointed out, neither the Explanatory Memorandum nor the Explanatory Note gives adequate reasons for the extensive use of Executive power. I will come back to this during Committee, but the Minister should at least have a shot at explaining why Executive powers are needed to this extent. So far, we have not heard a reason.

The Delegated Powers Committee illustrated the example of the dentistry profession. Dentistry is one of the professions for which regulation is provided in primary legislation. The Dentists Act 1984 includes a provision to recognise overseas qualifications. Holders of overseas qualifications who wish to qualify for registration as dentists in the UK must not only have a recognised overseas diploma but, as a starting point, they must sit an examination to satisfy the regulator that they have the requisite knowledge and skill. They must also satisfy the regulator as to their identity, good character, good health and knowledge of English. The committee says that Clause 1 appears to allow such requirements and other comparable requirements in primary legislation relating to other professions to be watered down by statutory instrument, if Ministers considered this necessary to enable demand for the service of the profession in question to be met without unreasonable delay. I do not need to remind the Minister that the dentistry profession is under acute pressure.

My reading of the Minister’s amendments in Clause 1, which are welcome, is that some protection is provided, because regulations can specify additional conditions for a professional’s overseas qualifications to be met. But, of course, that depends on the Minister taking the necessary action. It also appears that Clause 3 could be used to implement an international agreement that encompassed an override in respect of the actions of a regulator. The noble Lord, Lord Fox, referred to this, and, again, we will come back to Clause 3 later today.

So there is a need to safeguard and protect the integrity of the regulators and uphold the public interest in high standards among the professions covered by the Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Fox, has attempted to draft such protection, and I hope that the Minister will be sympathetic. If not, he needs to realise that the current construct of the Bill will simply not do, and the House would be right to insist on further protections.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, raised her consistent point, for which I give her respect, about declaratory statements within legislation. My noble friend Lord Fox, in bringing forward his amendment, which I had the pleasure to cosign, is justified in this instance, given what other noble Lords have said within this group. The Government have not provided the level of detail about the potential use of the extensive Henry VIII powers under this legislation in particular. Therefore, a statement that these powers should not be used to impact upon the independence of our regulators is of great importance.

That has been not endorsed but reflected in the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee’s report. As has been my wont over many years in this place, I have taken great joy in reading Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee reports—I did not have grey hair when I came into this place. It is rare that a committee report such as this can be so clear. On the Trade Bill, the Minister was given great credit when the committee cited support of the Government and raised no issues, but in this area, it could not be clearer. So the calls of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, and my noble friend Lord Fox for greater clarity are important.

The committee, in paragraph 8, said of the fact that no adequate explanation was given:

“This is particularly disappointing given that … as the Government have acknowledged, most of the substantive changes to the law envisaged by this Bill are to be made through delegated powers rather than the Bill itself.”


Therefore, a statement such as this amendment is clearer. So we agree with the committee that a much fuller explanation of the provision to be made in regulations under Clause 1, and the justification for that provision, is required.

The Government did not need to go down this route, as their own impact assessment indicated. The impact assessment started, under the Minister’s signature on the opening page, by giving reasons for the alternative approaches, and included:

“For recognition of overseas qualifications: a fixed (one size fits all) approach; and a risk/benefit system.”


I think there would be common ground between most of us on these Benches and the Minister on risk/benefit systems usually being best. But no, the Government have opted for “one size fits all”.

The impact assessment goes on:

“For regulators and international recognition agreements: arrangements for specific regulators.”


As we will no doubt hear in other groups, specific regulators have specific legislative underpinning for their own purpose and require scrutiny on a case by case basis. But the Government rejected it. And they rejected for information transparency a non-legislative guidance-based approach. So it is the Government’s choice to go down this route, which opens up a lot of areas where they should be much clearer in indicating the intent behind the regulation-making powers they want.

The Minister said on Second Reading that this Bill, while a framework, was the result of a considered view from reflecting and consulting with regulators as well as more widely with stakeholders. So I was frankly amazed to read that there is currently, for the healthcare professions, a live consultation on regulatory reform. It started on 24 March and closes a week today; it has not even closed yet. That consultation, Regulating Healthcare Professionals, Protecting the Public, touches on governance, the operating framework, fees, education and training, registration and fitness to practise. At paragraph 10, on the governance and operation framework, it says that the Government are

“proposing to devolve many of the decisions about day to day procedures to the regulators themselves, whilst ensuring that they continue to meet their overarching objective to protect the public.”

But this Bill provides the Government with Henry VIII powers to do exactly the opposite when they choose. So I ask the Minister: which is the Government’s intent—the one in the Bill we are scrutinising at the moment or the consultation that has not yet closed?

Paragraph 17 says that the regulators

“are accountable to the Privy Council … and the PSA provides oversight of how they carry out their regulatory functions. The Privy Council has default powers to direct most of the regulators if they fail to deliver their objectives. However, this does not apply to the GDC and GPhC. We propose that the GDC and GPhC are included within the Privy Council’s remit.”

So the Government, in their consultation, are seeking to expand the role of the Privy Council with its default powers, while this Bill is going in the opposite direction. So could the Minister explain what the relationship will be between the regulation-making powers in this Bill and the Professional Standards Authority? Can these powers be made to change the Professional Standards Authority’s legislative standing and how it provides oversight to the regulatory bodies it provides for? And what is this Bill’s relationship with the Privy Council? The Privy Council, as the Government say in their own live consultation at the moment, is the body these regulators are accountable to.

Paragraph 23 says:

“The proposals set out in this document aim to give regulators greater flexibility to determine how they set standards for, and quality assure, education and training.”


But the powers under this Bill will provide—in a way the Government have not yet provided information on—Henry VIII powers to completely determine what they are for the set purposes. So restrictions on the Government’s ability to use those powers which will impact upon this legislation are necessary.

The element of the consultation I thought was quite extraordinary is that the Government themselves say that when it comes to regulation of the medical professions they will go down a different route to change the legislation. The Government’s consultation says:

“We intend to implement … changes for each of the healthcare professional regulators through secondary legislation made under Section 60 of the Health Act 1999.”


There is no reference to any mechanisms under the Professional Qualifications Bill, so what is the Government’s intent for the Henry VIII powers under this Bill, with their already publicly stated intent to use the Health Act for medical?

Finally, the Government’s consultation closes with this:

“While we are required to hold a public consultation on all draft secondary legislation made using the Section 60 powers, we are taking this opportunity to seek views on the proposals that will, in due course, apply to all the professional regulators and all regulated healthcare professionals.”


On Second Reading, the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, made a very valid request of the Minister, which was to see some draft regulations about the intent before we conclude our scrutiny of this Bill in this House. The Minister refused her.

The Government’s consultation says that they are

“required to hold a public consultation on all draft secondary legislation”

when they change the regulation of health professionals, so what is the Government’s position on this? The Government say, in paragraph 407 of that document:

“We also intend to commission a review of the professions that are currently regulated in the UK, to consider whether statutory regulation remains appropriate for these professions.”


Clearly that is not the case, because the Government have decided so, as I said at the start of my contribution. Can the Minister tell us what the status of this consultation is, if so many issues have been pre-decided by the Bill?

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[Lord Patel (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for these amendments, as I have spoken at length about the problems that would have been created for the General Medical Council otherwise. I am also grateful that he had extensive consultation with his officials and the General Medical Council. As he said, the General Medical Council is grateful to him for bringing forward these amendments.

Having said that, I would like the Minister to confirm on the record that any determination made by a regulator on whether a professional is able to join a register can be based on an assessment of the individual’s knowledge, skills and experience rather than solely on qualifications. Can he further confirm that the regulator would be able to make such an assessment using whichever method they found appropriate, including existing tests of competence and any other test they might develop in the future when it is found necessary?

I also support the probing amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Lansley. When the General Medical Council considers qualifications and experience, it takes into account the experience that the individual may have gained in his or her own country, but it also has the power to look at the experience that the individual may have gained subsequently outside their country. The amendment sought by the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, seems appropriate and I would be interested in the Minister’s response, but, at this juncture, I thank him for his amendments, and I support them.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I refer to my interest as a member of the GMC board for the sake of this group of amendments. Like the noble Lord, Lord Patel, I welcome the government amendments and thank the Minister for his discussions with the regulator. I listened with great interest to the comments and queries of the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, about the amendments. In a sense, they reflect the generic and skeletal nature of this Bill, which means that each clause has to relate to many different professions. Frankly, I think it argues for a more detailed Bill, which would meet her issues as well as mine.

The argument that the GMC and others have put is very simple. Clause 1 currently gives power to the appropriate national authority—in the case of health regulators, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care—to draft regulations to introduce a process that will require them to assess whether someone has a particular overseas qualification that is substantially the same as a UK qualification. In the case of the GMC, a person so deemed would then be eligible to practise as a doctor in the UK. That is because the GMC does not require those with UK qualifications to do anything further to demonstrate that they have the necessary knowledge and skills for registration. This could give an automatic entitlement to practise, under the current provision of Clause 1, for international medical graduates on the same basis as UK graduates. Currently, GMC has a very rigorous process for assessing whether the international medical graduate is safe and fit to practise. Without these amendments, it would be almost impossible for the GMC to manage operationally, with 10,000 international medical graduates applying for registration each year. It would be virtually impossible to assess this number of qualifications from countries as diverse as India, Pakistan, Nigeria, UAE and many others, with hundreds of different medical schools. The concern was that the Bill as drafted could force health profession regulators to accept professionals into UK practice in a way that compromised patient safety.

The Minister was sympathetic, and I am very grateful to him. However, there remains the issue of the relationship of Clause 3 to Clause 1, which we will come on to debate. In relation to the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, he clearly has a point. I hope the Minister might take this away and give it further thought.

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[Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)]

My Lords, I have added my name to Amendment 27, which is principally in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter of Kentish Town. There is a lot to be said in this particularly obscure Bill for the publication of regulations in advance of their being made, so that people can see them in draft and consider them before they take effect. Regulators themselves would of course be consulted if this amendment is passed, but publication gives the opportunity for the wider public to scrutinise them, and no doubt inform this House and the other place, before the crucial point comes when the regulations are made. So I support this particular amendment.

There is a lot of force in the point just made by the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, that to confine this provision to the priority professions perhaps misses the point. Perhaps there should be a requirement across the board. There are other important professions that are not in this list. I am not claiming this particularly for the legal profession, as there are certainly other professions that are absent from this list, given the enormously long list of people who are within the purview of this Bill. The amendment may be a starting point but, for what it is worth, I support it.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble and learned Lord. I put my name to these amendments because I regard full and transparent consultation as very important. At its heart, the integrity and independence of our regulators is at stake. The problem is that the Bill gives far too many powers to Ministers. In the previous debate the Minister said that future trade agreements will not compromise standards. I wonder what our farmers and fishers think of that. We know that the Government are desperate for trade deals and that they have a track record of carelessness about their details. Clause 3 gives Ministers a completely free hand when it comes to trade agreements.

This debate is also set in the context of the independence of health regulators and fears that it may be compromised. Earlier, the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, made a cogent analysis of the interrelationship, or lack of it, between this Bill and the current extensive consultation by the Department of Health and Social Care on the reform of the health regulatory bodies. Those proposals are extensive and, as suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, give extensive powers to each regulator to streamline its own processes. I support that, because the public will benefit from more streamlined approaches to fitness to practise, which will deal with issues more quickly.

However, alongside this, it is widely expected that the forthcoming NHS Bill announced in the Queen’s Speech will contain extensive provisions on the very same regulatory bodies in health that we are talking about today. One provision will be to allow Ministers, by regulation, to abolish a regulator and establish others. I have huge reservations about this, because surely it puts their independence at risk if, on a whim, a Minister can get rid of a regulator that they do not like. When you put that prospect together with this Bill, alarm bells start to ring. Consultation is not everything, but it is a safeguard. My noble friend’s amendment would provide one such safeguard that I believe we need.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, I am delighted to speak in the right place in the right order on these two amendments and I apologise for what happened earlier. I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, on bringing forward these two amendments. I echo the concerns expressed by my noble friend Lady Noakes as to why they are limited to certain professions and not others. I am not entirely sure that all medical professions are represented here—the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, can confirm whether this is the case.

The noble Baroness will know that I am wedded to statutory consultation, and she has clearly set out what the specific forms of the consultation would be. With that support, I look forward to hearing my noble friend the Minister say whether he can see merit in these or whether they should be extended to other professions as well.

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Debate on whether Clause 1, as amended, should stand part of the Bill.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I am using the stand part debate on Clause 1 to raise my general concern about the extensive power given to Ministers without adequate justification or explanation.

On Second Reading I referred the Minister to the recent report of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, which during the course of the year has

“become increasingly concerned about the growing tendency for the Government to introduce skeleton bills, in which broad delegated powers are sought in lieu of policy detail”.

The committee went on to say that

“we urge the Government ‘to bring forward bills that contain clear policy intention instead of broad delegated powers’ and to ensure that ‘Departments do not use the exceptional powers given to them by Parliament as an expedient in the context of the pandemic as a cloak for effecting longer term, post-pandemic changes which would more properly be included in primary legislation’”.

Unfortunately, the Minister and the rest of the Government have chosen to totally ignore that in bringing this Bill before us. Not surprisingly, that has drawn a critical response from the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee. A number of noble Lords have quoted extracts from the committee’s report today. It drew three powers to the attention of the House, and in relation to each it noted

“a failure to provide adequate explanation in the Memorandum. This is particularly disappointing given that (a) as the Government have acknowledged, most of the substantive changes to the law envisaged by this Bill are to be made through delegated powers rather than the Bill itself, and (b) these are Henry VIII powers”.

On Clause 1, the committee commented:

“It is a Henry VIII power, as it includes power to amend primary legislation and retained direct principal EU legislation … The power can be used to make provision about a wide range of matters”—


which we have discussed comprehensively today. As the committee says, the Explanatory Memorandum

“provides two justifications for the delegation of power. The first is that the use of the power ‘is to be demand-led’ and ‘demand will naturally change over time and so it is not possible to achieve the policy through provisions on the face of the Bill that apply to a fixed set of professions’”.

If we accepted that argument, we could justify dealing with almost every piece of legislation in that way. As the committee said,

“that does not explain why all of the changes within the scope of the power—across so many professions and including changes to primary legislation—should be a matter for secondary rather than primary legislation”.

Nor did the Government respond to concerns that Clause 1

“could allow such requirements—and other comparable requirements in primary legislation relating to other professions—to be watered down by statutory instrument if Ministers considered this to be necessary to enable demand for the services of the profession in question to be met without ‘unreasonable delays’”.

The committee continued:

“The second justification given for the delegation relates to the existing legislative provision covering a wide range of different professions and regulators: ‘the professions that are in scope of this power have pre-existing legislative frameworks governing how each is regulated. It is not feasible to provide, on the face of the Bill, for an approach that would interface with each of these various frameworks and their different approaches to the recognition of professional qualifications, or to address them individually’”.


Well, as the committee expressed itself:

“We are surprised and disappointed that neither the Memorandum nor the Explanatory Notes … give any examples of circumstances in which the power might be exercised and changes that could be made in such circumstances; or … explain why Ministers will have no duty to consult before making regulations.”


We have discussed that in some detail. This

“makes it difficult to understand how significant the changes that could be made in exercise of this power could be, particularly given the proliferation of existing legislative schemes that could be amended; and gives rise to uncertainty as to whether there may be aspects of the law relating to recognition of overseas qualifications that the Bill would allow to be provided for in regulations … but which should instead be subjected to the much greater Parliamentary scrutiny afforded to primary legislation.”

I hope the Minister will explain why the Explanatory Memorandum is so scanty on such an important matter. Will he justify the extraordinary powers he and his colleagues are taking to themselves? Does he accept that some of the mistrust he complained about two groups ago on the part of Members towards the Government perhaps rests on the cavalier approach the Government themselves have taken to this House and Parliament by the unsatisfactory nature of the drafting of this Bill? I beg to move.

[Baroness Noakes (Con)]

My Lords, on the face of it, Clause 1 does seem innocuous, but at its heart there is a power for the Government to interfere in the way that regulated professions recognise people who have qualified abroad. I am far from clear that a case has been made for government intervention. I have not seen any evidence of the regulated professions dragging their feet when it comes to recognising overseas professionals. I recognise that our country has a demand for some professionals, notably those related to healthcare, which may well outstrip the numbers who qualify here, but there is still a big step before saying our UK professions need the Government to tell them what to do.

I have no problem with giving the regulators additional powers if their current rules make it difficult to accommodate the recognition of overseas professionals and they need legislation to change that—but that is not what this clause is about. The clause covers many regulated professions that already have effective provisions for the recognition of overseas applicants, but the Government have not excluded them from the scope of Clause 1. I believe the clause would be better expressed in terms of a power to be exercised by the Government at the request of regulated professions or with their consent. The Government do not know best when it comes to the professions, but the Bill does seem to be predicated on that belief. I hope it is not too late to reshape how this Bill interacts with regulated professions.

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I hope my explanation has provided noble Lords with further clarity as to why this approach is necessary and proportionate. I live in hope that I will be able to convince the House of this as we move forward. Of course I will be happy to follow up on any additional points. I commend this clause, as amended in my name, to stand part of the Bill.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, this has been an interesting debate and I am grateful to the Minister. At heart, he is saying that the Bill is proportionate, but the speeches from the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, the noble Lord, Lord Fox, and my noble friend Lady Hayter have undermined that point. It is clear that many of the current regulators already have the necessary powers, so the question must be: if the powers are required only for a limited number of regulators, why has a catch-all approach in the legislation been chosen by the Government? This gives us a clue to the kind of amendments that we will need to push on Report.

The Minister is grateful for the scrutiny the Bill has been given by the Delegated Powers Committee. I must say that, in my ministerial experience, it is not a committee whose recommendations are to be dismissed lightly. He has dismissed all of them in respect of the use of Henry VIII clauses and has given no explanation of why the Explanatory Memorandum is so inadequate. As for the offer of affirmative regulations in relation to the use of Henry VIII clauses, fewer than 10 defeats of secondary legislation have ever taken place in your Lordships’ House, as the noble Lord, Lord Fox, said. It makes not a jot of difference whether the procedure is affirmative or negative, because we can debate every negative SI. This is an alarming use of Henry VIII clauses.

I hope firmly that, on Report, we will amend the Bill to make it proportionate in the way that it needs to be. I am grateful to all noble Lords.

Clause 1, as amended, agreed.

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[Baroness Noakes (Con)]

My Lords, I have Amendment 28 in this group, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, has added her name. I have sympathy with many of the other amendments in this group, particularly those that affect Clause 3. I think that, in one way or another, we are all struggling with how to make sense of this rather dirigiste Bill and trying to turn it into something that is oriented around the regulated professions rather than around what the Government want the professions to do.

Specifically, Amendment 28 would make it clear that Clause 3 could not be used to force a profession or its regulator to recognise overseas professionals. The power created by Clause 3(1) is very broad. The national authority can make whatever changes it likes in order to implement an international recognition agreement. I recognise that the Government have said they do not intend to use trade agreements to recognise professions directly but will work through mutual recognition processes. However, the fact remains that they could do so because, if Clause 3 becomes law, it will give them that power and nothing else in that clause or anywhere else in the Bill stops them. For example, they could agree to Indian chartered accountants being recognised as auditors in the UK even though existing recognition processes have thus far not determined that those qualifications are sufficient either for the purposes of chartered accountancy in general or for the specific purposes of the regulated audit profession. That is just not acceptable.

I said at Second Reading that this measure could drive a coach and horses through the ability of professions to guard their standards and quality. My noble friend the Minister said in response that the Government have not forced the professions to accept anything in treaty negotiations to date and that basically we could rely on the Government to do the right thing. However, giving a Government powers to do things on the basis that they will not actually use those powers is a dangerous approach to legislation, and one that the House should rightly reject.

I believe that recognition of regulator autonomy on the face of this Bill is essential, and no amount of Dispatch Box reassurance can make good the problem of giving the Government too much power.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath [V]]

My Lords, I am glad to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes—I so agree with her. At the moment, Clause 3 gives Ministers a blank sheet to do whatever they wish, and I am afraid that ministerial assurances are not sufficient. One way or another, we need to amend Clause 3.

My principal reason for speaking is to support my noble friend in her Amendments 20 and 21 on skills shortages. It is surely important that any regulatory change is only considered before consultation with the relevant regulators, in the context of how the national body is undertaking work and investment in the domestic sector in order to help alleviate those shortages.

I am particularly interested in workforce issues in the health service and social care. I remind the Minister of a report by the King’s Fund in February this year which said that NHS hospitals, mental health services and community providers were reporting a shortage of nearly 84,000 full-time equivalent staff. Key groups, such as nurses, midwives and health visitors were severely affected. General practice was under strain, with a shortage of 2,500 full-time equivalents, with projections suggesting that this could rise to 7,000 during the next five years if current trends continue.

The regulator for health and social care, the Care Quality Commission, has highlighted workforce shortages as having a direct impact on the quality of care. NHS waiting time standards have been routinely missed for a number of years, which the consequences of Covid will exacerbate.

The Health Foundation, another respected independent institute, says that the UK ranks below the average of high-income OECD countries for the number of practising nurses and the annual number of new nurse graduates relative to its population. Further, about 15% of registered nurses in the UK are trained outside the country—more than double the OECD average.

Workforce shortages are not new in the NHS. They have been a recurring and enduring feature during its 70 years or so. The reasons are complex. A historical reliance on international recruitment may be part of the story. A bias in the UK towards focusing on the Exchequer cost of training doctors and nurses—which is expensive—but not on the cost associated with the failure to train enough staff is another factor. More broadly, workforce shortages are totemic of the short-termism that dominates national policy-making under this Government.

The noble Lord, Lord Patel, will speak at the end of this debate. I hope he mentions his House of Lords committee report from 2017. It argued that the absence of any comprehensive, national, long-term strategy to secure the appropriate skilled, well-trained and committed workforce that the health and care system will need during the next 10 to 15 years represented

“the biggest internal threat to the sustainability of the NHS.”

Amendments 20 and 21 post the way for a national authority to be required to publish a report on how skill shortages are being met and how we are investing domestically to address this shortage and upskill existing staff. I hope the Minister will be sympathetic.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I shall speak chiefly to Amendments 20 and 21 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, to which I have attached my name. These amendments are also supported by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, and the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, which gives them both cross-party and non-party backing. I have mentioned that all noble Lords received a letter yesterday from the noble Lord, Lord Grimstone, and the noble Baroness, Lady Berridge, with her Department for Education hat on, about the Bill and the skills strategy. Its second paragraph says:

“Let me reassure you the Bill is not a short cut to addressing skills development for the UK.”


We can see that the Government have really understood some of the deep concerns that have been expressed by your Lordships’ House about this Bill.

The letter makes reference to the Skills and Post-16 Education Bill. I am not going to start its Second Reading now, although we have to look at whether ladening people with more debt is the answer to our skills shortage.

Another sentence in the second last substantive paragraph of this letter says:

“To meet demand across certain regulated professions, we need appropriately qualified professionals from both domestic and overseas sources.”


In relation to Amendments 20 and 21 and my earlier Amendment 25, do the Government accept that, particularly for certain key—basic, you might say—professions central to our health and well-being, such as nurses and doctors as a general category, we should be training at least enough medical professionals to meet our needs? That sentence would suggest that that is not something that the Government accept.

I come briefly to a couple of details about these amendments, particularly Amendment 21, which is quite valuable and perhaps adds more than my Amendment 51. They highlight important issues, one of which is in subsection (d), which asks for a report on the number of the professionals in the group being considered who are female and male. It is important that we highlight gender disparities. There has been a lot of discussion about medical professions, but I have interest in both the farming and the building and engineering areas, where we have huge skills shortages and there are very serious gender disparities in recruitment.

As I listened to the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, talking about the complexities of modern medical approaches, I was thinking of some of the engineers I have been speaking to recently about the complexity of building ventilation, something that Covid-19 has very much brought into focus and which we clearly need to be thinking a great deal more about. There is a high level of complexity and a high level of skill is required; you have to understand each individual room and each individual climatic environment. It is a very complex area and requires very high levels of skills and training. I think also that when we are thinking about agriculture—we will be talking about this in the Environment Bill and in the agriculture Bill—we are talking about agri-ecological approaches and agriforestry approaches, not just one field of monoculture that you whack the plough over and you whack the sprayer over, but very complex management of ecosystems that requires a very high degree of skills that we simply do not have now. It requires training and may require people being brought in.

I also want to highlight, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, did, retention rates. Of course, nursing is the obvious area, but there is also a big issue in medicine that needs to much more attention. This is a really important amendment. The support for it demonstrates that, as does the Government reaction, but I think we need a much clearer picture of what the Government’s overall approach is. Are they determined to meet the challenge of training enough people for our needs?