Professional Qualifications Bill [HL]

Lord Purvis of Tweed Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 25th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, I welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Blake, to her position on the Labour Front Bench and look forward to working with her in her new role. She has already demonstrated a grasp of this issue and I am sure that her role in offering scrutiny to the Bill will enhance our proceedings. I warn her that whenever the Government say that a trade Bill or a Bill associated with trade is merely a technical measure, framework or tidying-up, we are here for quite a long time. However, she will add to that. The Minister, as ever, is open and in advance of this legislation he has been receptive to those who have wished to engage with him. I know that that will carry on. His record until now has demonstrated that.

I wish to apologise to noble Lords. The European Affairs Select Committee on which I serve is currently taking evidence on UK citizens’ rights in Europe and European citizens’ rights here, and I will have to leave the debate for a short period in order to question some of our witnesses. However, that is linked to some of the considerations in the Bill. I mean no discourtesy to the House.

My noble friends will raise many issues that have been outlined by the Minister. I will focus on some of trade elements, some of the underlying reasons why the Bill is necessary, some aspects of devolution and, as the noble Baroness, Lady Blake, indicated, concerns regarding the wide-ranging nature of some of the regulatory powers, including the Henry VIII powers included in the Bill.

The Minister’s signature is on the front page of the impact assessment on the Bill. It states that the best estimate of the Bill’s costs are an additional £18.2 million but possibly a staggering £42.82 million. I have to say to the Government that their slashing of ODA to the world’s poorest while being happy to find up to £43 million for new bureaucracy shows that their priorities are all wrong. The Minister’s introduction goes on to state that the net long-term negative social value of the Bill is £11 million. I am pleased that the Government have at last recognised that the cost of the lack of an agreement in the TCA on mutual recognition of professional qualifications is going to cost us a great deal—a net negative value of £11 million, just with the Bill alone.

I turn first to the trade impacts. Paragraph 92 of the impact assessment contains curious language. It states:

“Professional qualification recognition requirements can act as a non-tariff barrier to services trade. If UK professionals’ qualifications are recognised in European countries this could be an enabler in bidding for, winning and providing traded services by regulated professionals.”


That is a good thing. However, bizarrely, the Government think that erecting new service trade barriers is a good thing. The paragraph continues:

“By ending unilateral recognition for certain professions, UK regulators may be in a better position to negotiate mutually beneficial and reciprocal recognition arrangements with our EU counterparts.”


Using the EU regulated professions database cited by the Government in their papers associated with the Bill and the impact assessment, in 2019-20, the UK had 6,093 citizens’ qualifications recognised automatically by EU member states for work. We recognised 9,436. If one takes out the seasonal recognition of workers from Spain, the figures are broadly similar. Now we have to get agreements separately on a new application process for each country, with no real negotiating strength. I am not sure about the basis of the assumption that that is good for services trade.

This is for each country and each profession. The maths can be quite straightforward using the figures in the impact assessment but, if the current trend for the recognition of qualifications carries on, next year we will require more agreements by our regulators of other European regulators than we will for the people we actually regulate for the certification of qualifications. That is why the cost—of up to £42 million—is ridiculous, given the fact that this will require more agreements than the people whose qualifications it is meant to recognise.

Paragraph 84 of the impact assessment states that Home Office modelling on the new skilled worker visa system could result in a 70% reduction in EEA long-term worker inflows—70% less is not exactly a negotiating incentive for Europe. It is not just a poor negotiating hand; we have chopped it off entirely. The number of people whose qualifications have been recognised has already fallen by nearly 50% since 2018, so we are in a situation of serious concern for professional labour shortages, which I will turn to in a moment.

I had to read this next paragraph twice, as I could not quite believe it. I am glad that the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, is in her place, because I am sure that she will be interested to learn of this too. It states that:

“A reduction in the recruitment of EEA and Swiss-qualified professionals could reduce competition in the market for services, to the benefit of UK-qualified professionals in the UK. EEA firms may be less able to provide services involving regulated professions to UK customers, which may benefit UK businesses.”


I think I read in the press at the weekend that this is a free-trade Government: that is quite extraordinary—I must have been mistaken. The reason we have this Bill, as the Minister said, is to make it easier for foreign workers to be recognised because we have shortages. But the impact assessment says that the very fact that we have shortages is a good thing for UK businesses. Which is it, Minister?

What of the shortages and demand—the central element of Clauses 1 and 2? We were told that there would not be shortages in qualified workers because of Brexit, but the Government have deliberately refused to carry out an impact assessment of the TCA, so we must use this one instead. If it is not all about deemed shortages, what is it about?

This morning, I reviewed the Government’s list of shortages in skilled professions. The list, which is on GOV.UK, was updated on 6 April, and it is worrying, as the noble Baroness, Lady Blake, said. It is no surprise that it includes all musicians, all artists and all choreographers, proving the point that my noble friends on these Benches have been raising about this sector as a result of the TCA. The list also includes “Veterinarians —all jobs”, “Mechanical engineers—all jobs”, “Electrical engineers—all jobs” and all jobs in health and social care. I have quoted from one list but there is a separate list for health and education. Similarly worryingly, all business analyst and web designer jobs are included. This list is depressing for our economy. In one of the areas where we had relied heavily on highly skilled EEA workers, a

“70% reduction in EEA long-term worker inflows”

will have an additional impact on such services. Will this Bill help? Its bureaucracy and costs simply will not.

One reason the Bill will not help is the lack of interaction with this Government’s immigration and skilled workers policy. Look at the starting salaries of these so-called high-skilled workers, I wonder whether they meet the threshold of the immigration laws. Even if these workers coming from abroad—from outside the EEA, of course—have their professional qualifications fast-tracked or with less fees attached as a result of this Bill, their starting salaries do not match even the lowest threshold of the skilled worker points system, which has been set at £25,600. The Minister talked about looking at opening up opportunities. If you are in an FTA with a newly qualified midwife on a fast-track, low-fee application, recognised through the regulations in this Bill, the salary starts at £24,907. It does not meet the immigration points system threshold anyway. A registered teacher in England and Wales starts at £18,169; a Scottish social work graduate can expect an average starting salary of £23,000. Even with the shortage list and the points system, there is no proper interaction with what the regulations in this legislation will outline.

That is one issue with it, but noble Lords must read paragraph 86 of the impact assessment, which says that

“62 of the 88 professions likely to be included in the new framework are associated with occupations on the Shortage Occupation List.”

This new sledgehammer of a Bill seems to crack only two-thirds of the nuts. What about the remaining 26 professions?

The Minister said that this legislation is empowering. Well, paragraph 68 states that 90 regulators that regulate 140 professions are not included in the new frame- work, but can offer preferential access anyway. Do the Government feel that they will be allowed to do that? The Minister said that this is an enabling Bill. Will he insist on the independence of the regulators for those remaining 50 professions?

There are two final areas: interaction with the common travel area with Ireland, and devolution and trade agreements. The December 2020 guidance on the common travel area with Ireland makes specific reference to the route to work for service providers from Switzerland. In essence, to paraphrase, service providers from Switzerland can allow, for the purposes of that agreement, a Swiss national effectively to be considered a UK national for work in Ireland. This is intended to carry on until 2025. Is it the Government’s intention that it will do so? Will it allow for the other 50 of the 140 professions that I mentioned?

Is it the Government’s intention in future agreements to replicate our agreement with Switzerland to bypass the common travel area, effectively creating a route to work in the European Union via the common travel area? The last thing we need is yet another area of concern involving a professional barrier or border in the Irish Sea. I hope that the Minister can offer reassurance on that point.

What about future trade agreements? We were told repeatedly during the passage of the then Trade Bill that, for new trade agreements, if there were gaps in legislation, primary legislation would fill them. The Minister’s predecessor said that on a number of occasions. It now seems not to be true. The Government want to use the regulation-making powers in this Bill to implement key elements of FTAs. For example, if mutual recognition has been part of the EU-India trade discussions that are now under way, this should be done through primary legislation, not regulation now.

It is interesting that the justification for the use of delegated powers in this area is in paragraph 30 of the delegated powers memorandum, which states:

“The power is necessary to ensure commitments made by the UK under international agreements can be met. Since the power will be available in relation to international agreements concluded in the future, and the terms of those agreements are not known, it is not possible to deliver the necessary changes on the face of the Bill.”


Well, that is blindingly obvious—it is why we have legislation when we require it, and why we do not give the Government full-scale powers now to implement any agreement under any circumstances in future. That is an explanation of the use of delegated powers, not a justification for it.

On devolution, there is concern about the use of concurrent powers. In effect, the Government are saying, “If the devolved countries do not use the powers, we will”. I hope that the Minister can give us the up-to-date position on consultation, the request for legislative consent memorandums and implementation.

Finally, after stating categorically that this Bill protects the autonomy and independence of regulators, the Minister helpfully indicated half way through his speech that the Government will bring forward an amendment to do exactly that. Why is an amendment to protect the autonomy and flexibility of health regulators necessary before we have even started Committee stage? However, it is welcome, and I hope that the Government’s approach to the sensible amendments that will no doubt be brought forward by my noble friends on these Benches will be equally as receptive as their approach to the health professions. As the noble Baroness, Lady Blake, indicated, we will do our work to strengthen this Bill and improve it.