Professional Qualifications Bill [HL]

Lord Moynihan Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 22nd June 2021 Lords Chamber

My final point is that this list gives myself and my noble friends even greater concern about the interaction with the UK Internal Market Act. We have sought assurance that the carve-outs in that Act relating to the legal and teaching professions would be respected. It looks as though under this list they will not be. As we will be discussing later, when you add that to the Government’s position on the Australian trade deal, which includes automatic recognition of, for example, all Australian lawyers to practise anywhere in the United Kingdom, this is a direct override of the UK Internal Market Act. So, while the Government have more work to do, this should not be on the hoof, or while the Bill is going through Parliament. So I agree with the noble Baroness that this now needs to be paused.

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 45 in the name of my noble friend Lady Noakes, which makes provision for a regulator that does not regulate the profession directly but oversees the regulation carried out by other professional bodies. This refers precisely to the British Association of Snowsport Instructors, to which I referred at length at Second Reading. I too congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter of Kentish Town, on her excellent Amendment 63. I will speak in favour of it because it recognises:

“The appropriate national authority or the Secretary of State may by regulations amend”


the schedule,

“so as to insert additional regulators.”

These will not necessarily be regulators of regulated professionals by statute but may be regulators such as the British Association of Snowsport Instructors.

I highlight this case because I have received a letter, distributed in May by the department of the economy in the Canton du Valais in Switzerland. That canton has more mountainous regions than any other in the Alps, including many famous ski resorts such as Crans-Montana, Zermatt and Morzine-Avoriaz, to name but a few. The letter, sent by the department to ski instructors in Switzerland, said:

“The enforcement of Brexit on 1 January 2021 will mean major changes in the hiring of British nationals. We would like to inform you of the following changes to your sector of activity. As of 1 January 2021, British nationals can no longer avail themselves of the agreement on the free movement of persons. They are therefore subject to the foreign nationals and integration Act (AIA), its ordinance (AOA) and its directives (AIA directives). This implies that the employment of British nationals is strictly reserved for highly qualified persons and must meet the strict conditions of the applicable law. Thus, according to the LEI guidelines, the hiring of snow sports teachers can only be done for qualified teachers, provided that there is an exchange agreement between a partner in the country of origin and a Swiss institution. In addition, the teachers must come from non-EU EFTA countries where there is a long tradition of the activity in question. Therefore, it will not be possible to hire British nationals as ski instructors. The recruitment of ski instructors will have to be done at Swiss level, or within the European Union countries. The Foreign Labour Section team is at your disposal for any further information. Please take note of the above. Our best regards”.


That is a massive blow, announced in May, for all British ski instructors who have done so much over many generations to develop the sport of skiing, both in Switzerland and in Europe. It is also wrong. It says that the ski instructors should come

“from countries where there is a long tradition of the activity in question”—

but, of course, the country with the longest tradition of activity in Swiss-based skiing is the United Kingdom. It was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle who introduced skiing to Switzerland after returning from one of his skiing trips in Norway. He brought with him some skis, and he felt that Switzerland was the perfect terrain for such activity.

This is extremely serious for the future of not just British ski instructors but all those who support them. Seasonal businesses and the travel industry have argued the case very strongly that most people who go skiing in the Alps are supported. When they go on holiday, they tend to book through a British company, to be met at the resort by a British representative and, often, to be looked after by British staff—cooks, cleaners and ski instructors, as well as water sports instructors elsewhere in Europe and bar staff. This is all at risk. So the UK outbound tourism industry is facing a crisis in this sector post Covid. Thousands of young people—some 25,000 UK young people support outbound tourism—are also at risk.

It is exceptionally important to cover the second point, but I appreciate that it is the first point, on the British Association of Ski Instructors, that is most pertinent to this set of amendments. Not only does it effectively regulate all ski instructors in the United Kingdom but, through its hard work and diligence with international regulators—many of whom are supported in law in their respective countries—it is in a position whereby, as a result of the situation in which we currently find ourselves, it is not given the support by government that is absolutely necessary to remedy this.

Of course, when we were looking at the previous clause, Clause 7, on the assistance centre, there was an opportunity to put a great deal of effort, time and commitment behind securing the interests of those people as we go forward. I would argue that it is very urgent. If that sort of letter is circulating within the Alps, we need to act now.

I very much hope that one of two things might happen. The Minister is a Whitgift-educated man, and Whitgift is an outstanding centre of sporting excellence. I am sure that he wants to go back there with his head held high, having defended the interests of ski instructors in this country. Either he can use his extraordinary powers of negotiating skill to return pretty swiftly to Brussels to sort out this problem—and, in the case of Switzerland, negotiate with his counterparts there—or he can give a commitment that he will strengthen the assistance centre to make sure that this is a priority for the help given by the assistance centre. There was much debate and uncertainty about whether the resources behind the assistance centre would be adequate when the Committee looked into that in detail. Alternatively, he can accept the amendments in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, and my noble friend Lady Noakes. Those are the three options.

I very much hope that the Minister will recognise the importance of this issue, which is now critical and urgent, and in so doing be able to give a very clear commitment to the Committee today that he intends to take this forward. I hope that he will underline the urgency in the same way that I have tried to do for the Committee this afternoon.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 60 in my noble friend’s name, and I will speak to Amendments 65,66 and 67 in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Fox. This is a very short debate which in many respects reinforces points made in other groups, but it can be divided into two areas: first, the necessity of avoiding, where at all possible, using secondary legislation to amend primary legislation, as the previous group have indicated; and, secondly, to have an argument about pausing not just the Bill but the implementation of an Act before the Government have their policy ducks in a row.