Trade Bill — House of Lords, 2019-01-30
Topic: Foreign Trade
Christopher Fox (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord McNicol of West Kilbride, for introducing this group. As he pointed out, there are 17 amendments that cover objectives for future free trade agreements. The noble Lord, Lord Hannay, is not in his place right now, and I would never disagree with him. He identified a different group of amendments as being the most important part of what we are debating, but, for many people and for the impact that this is going to have out there in the country, this group of amendments is the plumbing. They cover the day-to-day operations of life, so I consider this to be a most important group of amendments I am not going to speak to all 17 amendments, but I am going to speak to four of them, which means that, unfortunately, I will break my own rule of brevity, but I will try to be efficient in what I say. I am going to speak to Amendments 39, 43 and 44, to which my name is attached, as well as Amendment 69, to which my noble friend Lady Jolly added her name but is unable to attend Amendment 39 requires the UK to negotiate with the EU an international trade agreement that creates a system for the mutual recognition of professional qualifications, as the noble Lord, Lord McNicol, set out. It must be at least as exhaustive as our current system and allow people to work across borders, allow workers to demonstrate the necessary requirements where qualifications diverge, and provide for co-operation between regulators. The noble Lord, Lord McNicol, used the example of architects; looking at the other side of the coin, 20% of the architects in this country come from an EEA or Swiss background. That is just one profession—one activity. The Government have the stated aim of building 300,000 houses; they will not have enough architects if we are not successful with this activity. Under the current mutual recognition arrangements, for doctors, nurses, vets, dentists, midwives, pharmacists and architects the recognition is automatic, providing that conditions on minimum training and professional experience are met. For others, there is a general system whereby regulators cannot ordinarily refuse applications to practise from other EEA or Swiss nationals in this country if they hold the qualifications required by their home state. Since 1997, the UK has recognised over 142,000 EU qualifications. This is a big job. Noble Lords should remind themselves that there will be a lot of work to do around this, including for lawyers, social workers and engineers. Over 27,000 decisions to recognise UK qualifications have been taken in the EU The political declaration states: "The Parties should also develop appropriate arrangements on those professional qualifications which are necessary to the pursuit of regulated professions, where in the Parties’ mutual interest" I suggest that replicating the system to be at least as good as the current one is in the interest of this party—the United Kingdom. On that basis, I hope that, as the noble Lord, Lord McNicol, said, we are pushing on an open door here. The four principles set out in this joint amendment are the same as the Government’s four priorities for a future mutual recognition regime. I hope that the Minister can confirm that that is the Government’s understanding; perhaps they can settle some nerves by putting this amendment in the Bill Clearly, a no-deal Brexit situation would make life much more difficult. A statutory instrument is running its way through the system; it has been published, but it is subject to the affirmative process and has yet to be debated in the House. I look forward to that; I say that because there are so many SIs, but I look forward to that process, because this is an important part of what we need to do The point made by the noble Lord, Lord McNicol, about UK workers working in the EU is equally as important and vital. Clearly, if we leave the European Union with no agreement, we cannot mandate what happens to all our professionals in the EU 27, EEA and Swiss territories. However, I urge the Government to explain what representations they will be making in the event of a no-deal Brexit to carry over the qualifications at the very least, and then, of course, to put in place a regime that works Amendment 43 requires the UK to seek to negotiate an international trade agreement with the EU that binds the UK to EU rules on open and fair competition. We have had some discussion around state aid in the debate on a previous amendment, so I will not repeat that. However, this also includes mergers and anti-trust behaviour. The political declaration states: "The future relationship must ensure open and fair competition. Provisions to ensure this should cover state aid, competition, social and employment standards, environmental standards, climate change, and relevant tax matters, building on the level playing field arrangements provided for in the Withdrawal Agreement"— clearly, now we do not know what that agreement will be— "and commensurate with the overall economic relationship". We have had this discussion in a different context, but a binding undertaking that there will be no regression on standards is important to a lot of people in this House, and other noble Lords who are not here today have made this point with strong arguments On Amendment 44 and REACH, the noble Lord, Lord Hain, spoke about regulatory divergence; if there is ever an opportunity for regulatory divergence, it will be around the complexity of something like chemicals legislation. I will not go into huge detail about UK REACH, but this House needs to understand the scale and the scope of this activity. I have experienced it from a business side, and the commitment of European businesses in sitting on literally hundreds of sub-committees, debating and working through the nature of chemicals, how they should be used, and the associated risks, laws and regulations is absolutely huge. I can see looks of consternation.