Professional Qualifications and Services (Amendments and Miscellaneous Provisions) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020

Lord Stevenson of Balmacara Excerpts

Monday 14th September 2020 Grand Committee

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for her introduction of the instrument. I understand a little more about it now than I did the first time I read through it, but I am rather like my noble friend Lord Blunkett, who explained in his rather self-deprecating way that he was confused until the end. The SI itself is clear, but the Explanatory Memorandum has left us all a bit flabbergasted and confused, as the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, just said. However, we must make progress on it because, as the Minister has said, it is an important document and vital to preparations for the post-transition period. However, I put it to her that it raises issues which are much more important for the longer term, which is what much of the debate has been about.

Before going on to that, I think we owe a vote of thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, for his obviously hard research into the situation affecting ski instructors, which we all noted and all felt a little tentative about raising. I think he has made the argument extremely well so I am going to make a slightly separate point that here is a group for whom special arrangements had to be made and they appear to have been carved out randomly on the basis that it did not seem to matter when in fact it does. In particular, in Scotland, where I come from, there is a well-established tradition and good training is provided for people who work in difficult and often dangerous circumstances in the high mountains. How extraordinary that they are going to be cut out without much thought in terms of mutual recognition. Will the Minister explain how and on what basis this was discussed with the Scottish Government, who presumably have very strong views on this? I will be interested to know how their response was registered.

As other noble Lords have picked up, the key question was asked by the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, about what happens to mutual recognition immediately afterwards—it was also raised by my noble friend Lord Blunkett. It was certainly part of the earlier discussions and debates. Those of us who follow this closely will have read the exchange of correspondence between the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee and the department on this in which the committee raised a question about how all this sits in the wider picture, which is what is behind a number of our comments. The response is rather confusing because it first tries to narrow it down to being a technical SI, which indeed it is at heart, tidying up a few things that need to be resolved, but it also says in response to a question about whether this issue is going to be a continuing discussion and debate that arrangements on the future recognition of professional qualifications after the transition period are being discussed as part of the EU-UK comprehensive free trade agreement and that the Government intend to include appropriate non-discrimination and equal treatment provisions in the FTA.

When one looks at it, the draft paragraphs contain a vague aspiration that in the free trade agreement there will be an appropriate way of expressing mutual concern and respect for other people’s qualifications much as we do at the moment, but they do not give any detail about where that is going or how effective it is going to be in practice. When the Minister responds, will she give us a bit more meat on the bone there? This is at the heart of many people’s concern about this SI. It is not the specific issues it raises, because when you drill down, and perhaps ignore the Explanatory Memorandum, you find that it is actually technical and relatively straightforward and affects a reasonably small area but, as was picked up, ski instructors are being given no future so far as we can see. More widely, as a pillar of the future prosperity of this country, we need that ability for our services, which are the majority of our economic activity these days, and our assets in intellectual property, which exceed our physical assets. How on earth are we going to make a go of that if we have no mutual recognition and have to start from scratch getting all the documentation required for everybody who wants to operate in order to earn for our country abroad? These matters really are important, yet they are not dealt with here. It is not the SI that does not do that, but nevertheless the questions are there and need answers. I look forward to hearing the Minster’s response.