Professional Qualifications Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2021-06-09
Topic: Mixed Topics
Dianne Hayter (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, in moving Amendment 17, I shall speak to the other amendments in the group. They make up two distinct elements which, as we have heard, lie at the heart of the Bill. The purpose of the Bill is to authorise statutory regulators, where their powers are not available, to be able to put in place a process that would recognise overseas professionals either to fill a skills shortage or to assist in implementing a new trade agreement where the agreement includes a professional skills recognition clause However, because of the two possibilities, as we have heard, a third issue arises, which is that of the absolute guarantee of the independence of regulators and the need to ensure that they are never mandated to recognise particular qualifications or experience. This third issue of independence is covered in Amendment 26 in my name and in Amendment 28 tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, to which I have added my name. The amendments say quite simply that no regulation under a trade agreement provision can undermine the independence and autonomy of a regulator, and that any such regulation may permit but not require a regulator to recognise an overseas qualification in allowing someone to practise here. These are the very least that must be guaranteed in the Bill and I am sure that it is something we will want to return to on Report I turn to the first issue of a skills shortage. It is not clear whether this means that the whole of a profession such as medicine, or only one specialism such as geriatric care or trauma surgery, would be dealt with in a regulation to require a process to be in place. It may well be that we need one, but not the other. My guess is that trauma surgery is quite popular and geriatric medicine perhaps less so. It would be interesting to know how granular the regulations would be when we ask a regulator to put a particular process in place. More than this, of course, is how the relevant Government, be they the UK Government or a devolved one, would decide that there is such a skills shortage. What role will service providers or the relevant regulator play in that decision Amendments 20 and 21 in my name and those of my noble friend Lord Hunt and the noble Baronesses, Lady Finlay and Lady Bennett, would therefore require sufficient consultation with the regulator. The Government must also produce a report, not only on the findings of their consultation but on the data and the modelling used to come to the conclusion that there is a skills shortage. This is crucial to what was said earlier by my noble friend Lord Sikka and, I think, by the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett: the Government must also indicate what they have meanwhile been doing to fill the skills shortage, by way of training our own workforce rather than pinching from other—sometimes very much worse off and more needy—countries, and what they are doing to retain the workforce that we have I hear from my consultant stepson that retaining existing medical staff is one of the biggest challenges. It is no good keeping on bringing people over and recruiting them to the health service—or indeed anywhere else—if our retention is so low that we are losing people elsewhere. Continuing to hire in when we cannot keep those whom we have does not sound like brilliant workforce planning. Indeed, the Minister might like to explain how, after a decade of Conservative Government, we still lack over 100,000 social workers, 3,000 teachers and 84,000 NHS staff in England. The Royal College of Nursing estimated that, before the pandemic, we were 50,000 nurses short, and the Royal College of Psychiatrists has described lack of staff as one of the biggest causes of workforce burnout in mental health. If he has a moment, he might just reflect on how 10 years of Conservative Government has left us in the position where he now tells us that we need the Bill to fill gaps in our skill base I should add that the Bar Council is concerned about the restriction in Clause 2 of the Clause 1 power to situations of unmet need for particular professional services. The Bar Council feels that the Government have offered insufficient justification for this measure which could, it says, negatively affect professional autonomy through an unintended effect of the scope of pre-existing regulatory powers to recognise overseas qualifications. It sounds as if the consultation that we heard has taken place was perhaps not all that thorough. Rather than respond to that today, could the Minister undertake to meet the Bar Council before Report to see whether he can better understand and meet its concerns or find some arrangements to allay its fears? Given how much consultation we have heard has happened, that last-minute plea—it arrived in my in-tray today—suggests that the consultation has perhaps not been all that deep I turn to the second arm of the Bill: its potential power to require a regulator to set up a process for foreign accreditation. We again ask, as before—the Minister agreed to it—that he let us know which regulators lack that power. If there are such regulators, Amendment 26 in my name and that of the noble Lord, Lord Trees, again demands that any such regulation to implement an international recognition agreement does not undermine the independence and autonomy of a regulator. The noble Lord is unfortunately unable to speak because his name is not on the speakers’ list, but he obviously knows the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons very well. It already has all these powers and frequently recognises professionals from other non-EU countries.