Professional Qualifications Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2021-06-22
Topic: Agriculture
Anne McIntosh (Conservative, Centre-right): I support my noble friend Lady Noakes in her two amendments and the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, in her Amendments 63 and 68. The first list that I saw was the one produced informally by my noble friend Lady Noakes, which I was delighted to see and took as gospel. Now we have had two or three iterations of it. While that may cause us some confusion and bemusement, one has to look to the professions and the regulators that are required to regulate them. I start from a simple premise: I am a non-practising member of the Faculty of Advocates. I understand what the faculty does, along with the corresponding regulator in England and the Law Society of Scotland—that is, the regulators for their respective professions I am delighted that the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, has leapt to the cause that I supported on the question of why pig farmers were chosen for special treatment under the Bill. If I may pause on the completeness of the list, I am not even sure that all the professions listed on pages 20 and 21 of the impact assessment—which I know the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, thinks is no longer entirely up to date—are covered in the new list. It is difficult to see whether "Chief engineer class I fishing vessel" and "Deck officer class II fishing vessel" have simply been renamed in the list that we received on Sunday afternoon or whether they are the same in the impact assessment and the latest letter. What causes me some concern and confusion, in the light of the comments by the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, is the foot- note to table 4 on page 20 of the impact assessment: "European Commissions’ Regulated Professions Database. It should be noted that recognition decisions are captured at the generic profession level and not the specific profession level. Some generic professions listed may therefore include specific professions which do have alternate routes and/or which may be likely to be included in the new framework. This table is therefore likely to overstate the recognition decision numbers of the specific professions without alternate routes and which are not likely to be included in the new framework." Now I am even more confused than before In the light of the forensic work that the noble Lord, Lord Purvis has done in this regard, I am still not entirely convinced as to why pig farmers are included, and producers of chickens for meat production only are included. Does that mean that overseeing egg-producing chickens is not deemed to be a profession and is therefore not regulated for the purposes of the Bill? I go back to what I said when this issue was first raised on the second day of Committee: could my noble friend please state the legal basis for including pig farmers? Has it been correctly identified by the noble Lord, Lord Purvis? I would like to understand, when I meet them at Thirsk auction mart, whether they are included or not. Are egg-producing chickens included or only those for meat production? Perhaps more importantly, on what basis are beef and lamb producers and producers of chickens for other purposes not included? Is that a permanent exclusion or could it be revisited, and might they be included at a later date The noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, was being very restrained when he said that this is an unsatisfactory situation. We have to accept that the Bill before us is perhaps not fit for purpose and that we need to do other work on it. I do not think that, hand on heart, we can allow it to go forward to Report and eventually leave the House in this form, because we would not be serving well the professions or indeed their regulators if we did. So I support Amendments 45, 46, 63 and 68 and particularly the call from my noble friend Lady Noakes to pause the legislation at this stage so that we can do the work that, undoubtedly, my noble friend and his department would be delighted to do.