Professional Qualifications Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2021-06-14
Topic: Foreign Trade
Dianne Hayter (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, as we have heard, Clause 3 gives powers to Ministers to do all sorts of things, but particularly over professional regulators to implement what the Government have negotiated with a third country as part of a trade deal. We are not talking about participation in negotiations on a trade deal, but when a trade deal is done, Clause 3 would give Ministers powers to make such provision as they think necessary to implement any international recognition agreement Basically, it states that, where the Government have agreed that opening up a particular UK profession to people qualified in that third country, Ministers can tell a supposedly independent regulator—if I understood what the Minister said earlier—simply to put in place a process for assessing any applicants. However, it goes much further than that, as the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, and others have said. It could even be to accept such applications, not simply to have process by which they would consider applications. Why is this power needed? Either the regulator already has the power to have such a process to consider applications so that it can judge the qualifications, experience, fitness to practice and general bone fides of applicants, in which case this power is not needed, or it lacks the power and does not want it because if it wanted such a process, it would have put it in place. Not everyone opened their emails at 5 pm yesterday, but I did, and I had a letter from the Minister. One of the questions we have been asking—and which he helpfully promised to answer—was how many regulators are we discussing anyway, under the 60 regulators who do not already have the powers to accept or consider applicants from third countries to practice here. He named three, meaning that we may be doing this for just three regulators. One is the Health and Safety Executive, another the Teaching Regulation Authority, and the third is the Security Industry Authority, which I think regulates bouncers. Someone who knows about this can tell me if I got that right—I see that the Minister confirms it. So this Bill will enable a regulator which regulates our bouncers to take applicants from third countries with which we have done a trade deal, so that their bouncers can come and operate at our nightclubs, which are closed at the moment because of Covid. I thought I should share with colleagues that we are possibly talking about three regulators who do not have the power, and that one probably does not want it anyway. If they can already consider applicants, then this seems to go further than saying that you need a process in place, and seems possibly to say, "You will accept these applicants," whom I am sure were already regulated in their own countries. Nevertheless, it seems to require regulators to accept them, not just to put a process in place My noble friend Lord Hunt asked why should a Minister be able to override what a statutory regulator—a supposedly autonomous regulator set up in law to protect the public and maintain standards—and establish a new route against its wishes? If the regulator is happy, everything is hunky-dory, and we do not need this power anyway. The Government have said that Clause 3 is a more proportionate method to implement mutual recognition agreements, but they have failed to tell us which trade deals being considered will have a mutual recognition agreement and why regulator-to-regulator side agreements are not satisfactory. The Minister’s letter—for those of your Lordships who did not open their emails at 5 pm yesterday, and incidentally I am impressed that the Minister was there to press send at that time—to the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, says that if an MRA is agreed and approved by the trade agreement, "it may need to be implemented in law" However, the Minister in that letter gave no example of why it would need to be implemented in law, or what type of MRA that is. Perhaps he can now spell out the circumstances in which an MRA would need to be implemented in law in the way envisaged in Clause 3 I am anyway still bemused about why—given that the Government have said that, in their negotiations with other countries, it is for the autonomous regulator to determine who practises a profession—a Minister might need to instruct a regulator in law to set up a route for negotiations and recognition As the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, and others said, and as the Delegated Powers Committee wrote, the Government have failed to satisfy us that Clause 3 is needed at all, and—as Amendment 56 tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, emphasises—have failed to explain why, should something along these lines even be needed, it should enable primary legislation to be implemented by statutory instrument. Clause 3 states that the Government—or any of the devolved Governments—can use regulations to implement any international recognition agreement, which means that they could use it, as others have said, to authorise Brazilian vets, Japanese bouncers or Australian teachers to work here without our regulators being the ones to decide that. It certainly seems to go beyond simply having a process in place, which is the point on which I wish to press the Minister. Earlier he said that it was all about making sure there is a process in place. If I have not understood correctly, I am looking forward to the Minister’s explanation of why this is needed.