Professional Qualifications Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2021-11-09
Topic: Immigration
Jeremy Purvis (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, an issue raised in Committee that it would be helpful for the Minister to provide an update on—in writing would be satisfactory to me—concerns those European Union workers who had been providing services, with their qualifications recognised, and had applied for settled status but on the fast-track element, which did not ask them to provide any more information about the qualifications recognition. With Clauses 5 and 6 revoking the previous EU scheme and the move towards the domestic schemes, there is still potentially a grey area for those workers who will have to provide proof of their qualifications recognition if they change employer, or indeed if they seek new rental or property agreements, et cetera Previously, the noble Lord, Lord Grimstone, indicated that the Government were aware of this, and he provided assurances. It would be very helpful if the Government could say how many of these workers could be in this position. It emphasises the point made by the noble Baroness, which I agree with, that, even if there are unintended consequences of putting at risk some of these workers, we can ill afford it The second element is that it would be helpful to know the Government’s intentions for the timing of the revocation of the EU scheme. Previously, the Minister indicated that it would be when the Government were ready to do so but that they were not in any rush to do it. It will be helpful to know what timeframe we are looking at, because the noble Lord, Lord Frost, in a Statement he provided to the House in September, said that the Government were now carrying out a substantial review of previous European legislation and retained EU law. Are professional qualifications separate from that review or will they be considered as part of it? If the Minister could give some reassurance on that, I would be grateful Finally, because this will probably be my last comment on the Bill in this House—which I am sure the noble Baroness, Lady Bloomfield, will be pleased to hear—I want to put on record how she and the noble Lord, Lord Grimstone, have engaged in this process. I have been in this House a number of years, and we hear at the Dispatch Box fairly frequently that the Government value the input and scrutiny from this House and take on board whenever we amend legislation, and we always welcome that. But our amendments quite frequently get buried in the dust in the other House, when all our great counsel and wisdom is turned back The benefit of the noble Baroness and the noble Lord listening and then acting by tabling the government amendments is that this is now government policy, and the Bill is now substantially changed. If I understand it correctly, this will be the first time that the autonomy of regulators will be respected in primary legislation. That is a considerable achievement for the parliamentary process of a Bill of which we had been not only sceptical but critical at the early stages, but which we now support. Therefore, I commend both Ministers and their teams for the work they have done. Personally speaking, I think the Bill is in a much better position. For the benefit of our regulators and those who receive services that the professions operate, it is a better Bill as a result.