Professions: Qualifications

(asked on 12th April 2021) - View Source

Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps he is taking to negotiate the automatic mutual recognition of professional qualifications with the EU for (a) architects and (b) other professions.


Answered by
Paul Scully Portrait
Paul Scully
This question was answered on 15th April 2021

The recognition of professional qualifications is important for individuals wishing to practise their chosen profession outside the jurisdiction in which they qualified. It is for this reason that UK negotiators worked hard to secure a best-in-class Free Trade Agreement with the EU, which includes a framework for regulators and professional bodies to agree the recognition of professional qualifications for specific professions. It is important that regulators are able to maintain professional standards. In negotiating recognition arrangements such as mutual recognition agreements, it is for UK regulators and professional bodies to decide what arrangements – including, potentially, on automatic recognition - they want to agree with their EU counterparts.

The Government is supporting the Architects Regulation Board (ARB) as they explore recognition arrangements under the UK-EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement with their European counterparts through the forum of the Architects’ Council of Europe. The ARB also signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland in December 2020.

The Government has also established a dedicated team to support regulators and professional bodies to enter recognition arrangements with their international counterparts. The team is working with regulators and professional bodies across the UK’s professions and sectors to progress this work.

Reticulating Splines