Professional Qualifications Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Hunt of Kings Heath and Baroness McIntosh of Pickering

Committee stage
Monday 14th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I am saying that Clause 4 should not stand part of the Bill. We have now discussed Clause 4 extensively in the last three debates. I do not intend to go over the ground because that would be unnecessary. Coming to the crunch, the Minister has said that Clause 4 would be used by national authorities to encourage regulators to make mutual recognition agreements, but that they will be under no obligation to do so. Today, the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, said that he was not quite sure what “encourage” means. In a sense, one Government’s encouragement may become another’s diktat, particularly when Clause 3 is part of their armoury.

Something else the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, said, on the first day in Committee, was about the interrelationship between the Bill and what is happening with health regulators. At the moment, there is an extensive consultation on the use of Section 60 orders in relation to a whole host of health regulators. What is interesting is that in that consultation no reference is made by the Government to them upholding the independence of those regulators—something the GMC noted, I think, in its response. Put that alongside the Government’s intention to bring an NHS Bill to Parliament very shortly—it was mentioned in the Queen’s Speech, but has not yet been published, I suspect because extra clauses are being added day after day. Part of that intention is to add clauses on regulations that will give the Government the power to abolish a regulator through an order-making power and set up new regulators through an order-making power. Regrettably, that came out of a Law Commission recommendation quite some years ago. When you put this together, you have to worry about the future independence of the health regulators. It is pretty clear that, with the legislative changes, they would potentially come under more direct control from the Department of Health. One has to say, many of those regulators enjoy considerable oversight by the department already—hence, a little scepticism about the Minister saying that it is entirely up to the regulators what they do.

My principal reason for raising Clause 4 was to refer to the Delegated Powers Committee, which refers to this being a Henry VIII clause. It refers to the memorandum and accepts that it says that it is a narrow power and cannot be used to change regulators’ abilities to recognise overseas qualifications, but, as the committee says, the memorandum fails to explain this or say what effect regulations under Clause 4 should have. I wanted to raise this because the report of the Delegated Powers Committee is critical throughout of the Minister’s department, the Explanatory Memorandum it has produced and its failure to provide sufficient explanation. I put it to the Minister that when I was a Minister, we worried about the Delegated Powers Committee and, frankly, always accepted its recommendations. We seem to be developing a new convention, where Minister think this is just any old committee and can be ignored. It cannot be; it has to be taken seriously. I urge the Minister to recognise that when the Delegated Powers Committee says that there is not enough explanation, something needs to be done about it. When it says that Clause 3 will not do, it is not something you can simply ignore; you have to come back with some proposals to deal with it. That is how legislation works in your Lordships’ House. I do not really expect the Minister now to go through what Clause 4 says, because he has done it; I just wanted to draw attention to the Delegated Powers Committee’s report.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

I have two brief points. I would like to speak in support of Clause 4 standing part of the Bill, but I welcome my noble friend explaining, in response to earlier amendments, that this will be regulator-led and is permissive, not prescriptive.

First, I am slightly concerned by subsection (1), as explained in paragraph 39 of the Explanatory Notes, which then go on to say that it seems quite prescriptive. I do not know if that takes away from the permissive nature of the rest of the clause.

Secondly—and, to be honest with my noble friend and the Committee, I could not think of where else to raise this—I accept that they are not regulated bodies, but I understand that the professional drivers and attendants of pig farmers, chicken producers and livestock transporters are covered by the remit of the Bill. It is interesting to see, but I cannot understand why beef and lamb producers are not covered, because it strikes me that they might like the opportunity to make common ground with countries with which we are seeking to do deals. It may be that they are allowed to do so, but if they are, I wonder why they are excluded from the remit of the Bill.

Finally, I assume that the costs will be minor. I would like to place on record the fact that most of the bodies that have contacted me welcome the powers set out in Clause 4. I do not know whether paragraph 66 on page 18 of the impact assessment is relevant here. That refers to frameworks but I presume that also covers regulator recognition agreements. It comes up with a figure, giving a mean of £350,000 as a best estimate. On what basis has that figure been reached?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I put my name to Amendment 60, to which my noble friend will refer in the wind-up, and will also speak in favour of Amendment 37.

Amendment 37, as we have heard, makes it explicit that qualifications recognised before the EU regulations were revoked are not affected. My noble friend Lady Blake’s Amendment 60 seeks to ensure that existing qualifications in the UK are not affected by the Bill. Rather like the noble Baroness, Lady Fraser, I assume that that is guaranteed or assuaged somewhere in the Bill, but it would be helpful to have the noble Lord’s reference point on that.

The noble Lord, Lord Palmer, made some interesting points about grandparenting, which is obviously a long and sensible tradition when making changes to a regulatory body or regulating a profession for the first time which is already in some form of voluntary accreditation. I think the HCPC will be well used to doing that. Provided that we can be assured that the people being transferred over are, in the words of noble Lords, fit to practice, it should be a fairly straightforward process.

I was struck by the suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, that we as Members of this House would be particularly favourable towards grandparenting—I suppose that means that in any reform of the second Chamber, existing Members would transfer over. It is probably about the only way to get this place to agree to reform—but in your dreams, my Lords.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

I support the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Palmer of Childs Hill, in moving his Amendment 37 and echo many of the remarks made previously on this.

My starting point is this: we now face a potential shortage in many professions, particularly among veterinary surgeons and many categories of medical staff, including doctors, nurses and other clinicians. It therefore seems odd that we have two amendments in this small group on the need for this to be in the Bill. Can my noble friend explain, as he has said many times during the passage of this Bill, at Second Reading and in earlier debates, that the Bill is deemed to be a tool to address potential shortages in the professions, such as veterinary surgeons and medical staff at every level? If that is the case, is it his view—bearing in mind the two probing amendments in this group—that it should perhaps be explicitly stated in the Bill, for the avoidance of doubt?

Professional Qualifications Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Hunt of Kings Heath and Baroness McIntosh of Pickering

Committee stage
Wednesday 9th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble and learned Lord. I put my name to these amendments because I regard full and transparent consultation as very important. At its heart, the integrity and independence of our regulators is at stake. The problem is that the Bill gives far too many powers to Ministers. In the previous debate the Minister said that future trade agreements will not compromise standards. I wonder what our farmers and fishers think of that. We know that the Government are desperate for trade deals and that they have a track record of carelessness about their details. Clause 3 gives Ministers a completely free hand when it comes to trade agreements.

This debate is also set in the context of the independence of health regulators and fears that it may be compromised. Earlier, the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, made a cogent analysis of the interrelationship, or lack of it, between this Bill and the current extensive consultation by the Department of Health and Social Care on the reform of the health regulatory bodies. Those proposals are extensive and, as suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, give extensive powers to each regulator to streamline its own processes. I support that, because the public will benefit from more streamlined approaches to fitness to practise, which will deal with issues more quickly.

However, alongside this, it is widely expected that the forthcoming NHS Bill announced in the Queen’s Speech will contain extensive provisions on the very same regulatory bodies in health that we are talking about today. One provision will be to allow Ministers, by regulation, to abolish a regulator and establish others. I have huge reservations about this, because surely it puts their independence at risk if, on a whim, a Minister can get rid of a regulator that they do not like. When you put that prospect together with this Bill, alarm bells start to ring. Consultation is not everything, but it is a safeguard. My noble friend’s amendment would provide one such safeguard that I believe we need.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, I am delighted to speak in the right place in the right order on these two amendments and I apologise for what happened earlier. I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, on bringing forward these two amendments. I echo the concerns expressed by my noble friend Lady Noakes as to why they are limited to certain professions and not others. I am not entirely sure that all medical professions are represented here—the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, can confirm whether this is the case.

The noble Baroness will know that I am wedded to statutory consultation, and she has clearly set out what the specific forms of the consultation would be. With that support, I look forward to hearing my noble friend the Minister say whether he can see merit in these or whether they should be extended to other professions as well.

Medicines and Medical Devices Bill

Debate between Lord Hunt of Kings Heath and Baroness McIntosh of Pickering

Committee stage & Committee: 6th sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 6th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 17th November 2020 Grand Committee

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble and learned Lord. I have added my name to that of my noble friend Lady Thornton to Amendment 128, which was introduced by my noble friend Lady Wheeler. This regards the organisations to be consulted—other noble Lords have already referred to this—and concerns the provisions of Clause 41 for consultation on Parts 1, 2 and 3 of the Bill. As noble Lords have said, at the moment, it is entirely up to the Secretary of State who is consulted, other than the clarification the Government have brought in relation to the devolved Administrations.

The context of this amendment is the extensive power given to Ministers under the Bill. We have debated this before, but it is worth reminding the Committee that the Delegated Powers Committee in its report on the Bill was highly critical of Ministers for failing to provide sufficient justification for parts of the Bill adopting a skeletal approach. As the committee said, the Bill gives Ministers wide powers to almost completely rewrite the existing regulatory regime for medicines and medical devices.

It is also worth reminding the Committee that the Constitution Committee described the Bill as

“a skeleton bill containing extensive delegated powers, covering a range of significant policy matters, with few constraints on the extent of the regulatory changes that could be made using the powers.”

It went on to say:

“The Government has not provided the exceptional justification required for this skeleton approach.”


The case for a sunset clause is readily apparent, but in its absence, the way in which consultations are done assumes more importance than normal. It is very surprising that the duty to consult is open-ended and simply leaves it to Ministers to decide who to consult. The Minister may say that he does not like lists of organisations to be consulted, but legislation is littered with lists of organisations because it is important to reflect the range of bodies that ought to be consulted. Discretion is always given to Ministers to add to those lists of organisations.

I hope that the Minister will be prepared to take this back because in the end, certainly in the absence of a sunset clause, we have to beef up the provisions on consultation.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I support in particular Amendments 105 and 127 in this group, but I shall speak briefly to Amendment 105 and thank the noble Baroness, Lady Wheeler, for introducing this short debate on it. In the context of the proposal for a requirement to consult the devolved Assemblies, I share the concern expressed by my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay of Clashfern: it is essential that we keep all the devolved Assemblies in tune with Westminster thinking as the Bill and the regulations under it progress.

Business and Planning Bill

Debate between Lord Hunt of Kings Heath and Baroness McIntosh of Pickering

Report stage & Report stage (Hansard) & Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 20th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I very much welcome the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Northover. I stress its cross-party nature and the support that it has from all around the House. Even this late stage, I ask the Minister to take this back and consider it further between Report and Third Reading. I was very proud of the actions of the Labour Government which led to the banning of smoking in public places. I worked with my noble friend Lord Faulkner and other noble Lords across the House in getting through the Lords the amendment that banned smoking in cars when children are present; we have a great history of working together in relation to measures against smoking. I do not see why, even at this late stage, we cannot do this again. With Covid-19, we know that many of the worst-affected have been those with cardiovascular or lung disease. Equally, Covid-19 has had a powerful impact on people taking up exercise programmes, fighting obesity and giving up smoking as a result; some 1 million people have done this during lockdown and there could be more.

This amendment, in whatever guise, could be helpful to many people. Far from having an adverse impact on business, smoke-free areas would be welcomed by most customers and would therefore bring in more trade; the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, surely had his finger right on the pulse in that. The measure is proportionate; the regime will apply only to licences on highways so not to pub, café or restaurant garden areas or pavement seating, where smoking is allowed. It also has support from local government. In addition, we need to think about the workers. The noble Lord, Lord Young, reminded us in Committee of the health risks to employees of passive smoking. Given the risks that those staff already carry, a duty of care is surely owed to them in respect of the risk from passive smoking.

My noble friend Lady Wilcox made a powerful speech, arguing that the decision should be left to the discretion of local authorities. I welcome the progress that my Front Bench has made on this. She also pointed to some technical deficiencies with the Bill. We have a way of clearing up technical deficiencies: either through a government amendment at Third Reading or, if the Government agree, by holding this over until a discussion can take place between all of us before we reach Third Reading. I hope that, even at this late stage, we can attempt to reach some form of consensus; I urge everybody concerned to do all they can to do so.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering]

My Lords, possibly the most surprising thing about Amendment 15 as drafted is that the signatories are predominantly Liberal Democrats; it is not a particularly libertarian policy that they have come up with. Also, it seeks to unravel the compromise reached when the smoking ban was introduced. What I regret most about Amendment 15 is that it does not recognise the heavy investment that pubs, bars and restaurants have made in the outdoor facilities that they hope to open more of. For that reason, I regret that I shall be unable to support Amendment 15.

I pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Howe, who, through my chairmanship of PASS, I know has spent a great deal of time with the hospitality industry; obviously, I have had dealings with the hospitality industry as well. It is keen to recognise—and I welcome—the compromise offered by the government Amendment 13: there will be a smoke-free seating element. Had Amendment 15 not been tabled, perhaps we would not have got to the position we are now in. I note that a number of noble Lords have expressed the wish that the Government should go further, but the beauty of Amendment 13 is that it has regard to the heavy challenges currently facing the hospitality and leisure sectors during the ongoing Covid crisis and the way they are seeking to reopen. I very much welcome the work that has gone into Amendment 13; I will be delighted to support it if we have to later this evening.

Recognition of Professional Qualifications (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2018

Debate between Lord Hunt of Kings Heath and Baroness McIntosh of Pickering

Monday 11th February 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome the regulations but I will ask a number of questions. The first is, obviously, what are the reciprocal arrangements for the rights of British professionals affected by the terms of these regulations in other EEA countries and Switzerland? Is that matter currently ongoing in the Minister’s department and the other relevant departments for those professions to which he has referred?

There is a reference on page 4 of the Explanatory Memorandum to the situation of lawyers. I must declare an interest because I practised in two separate firms in Brussels as an EU lawyer, as I would call it, with the qualification that I had then as a member of the Scottish Bar—I am now a non-practising lawyer. Could the Minister confirm that the Explanatory Memorandum refers on, I think, page 4 to the statutory instrument relating to lawyers that has already been adopted? What is the exact relationship between the SI that we have already adopted and the regulations before us? What is the position overall of European lawyers from EEA countries and Switzerland wishing to practise here and of British lawyers wishing to practise post Brexit in other EEA countries and Switzerland?

The position of teachers has long posed a particular problem in countries such as Germany. In the consultation that I am sure my noble friend and his department will have done, were any issues raised about reciprocal rights for teachers, and have any issues been raised by existing EEA-national or Swiss-national teachers currently practising their profession in this country? I think my noble friend has answered this question, but the Explanatory Memorandum says that such issues will be the duty of others—for example, paragraph 17.9 says that the Department of Health will look at EEA and Swiss doctors, nurses, midwives and dental practitioners who wish to come and work here. If I have understood that correctly, what will the position be regarding the recognition of EEA and Swiss professionals in Northern Ireland, with there currently being no devolved government there? Is that something his department will look at? For example, the Explanatory Memorandum says specifically that farriers in Northern Ireland will not be covered. I would be very grateful if he would help me to understand particularly how farriers will be dealt with in that regard.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I remind the House of my membership of the board of the General Medical Council. I want to follow the noble Baroness by focusing on doctors in discussing this SI. As far as the GMC is concerned, the SI provides welcome legal clarification and certainty on the supporting framework governing how EEA-qualified doctors will enter the UK medical register if the UK leaves the EU on these terms—in other words, under a no-deal Brexit. We hope it will help to manage any potential disruption to the NHS medical workforce in those circumstances.

However, can the Minister confirm—I think he did so by implication in his opening remarks—that the regulations will be of only limited application to the medical profession? They will apply only in so far as they make transitional provisions for applications made or actions taken before exit day and which have not been fully determined by then.

The Minister will be aware that there is continuing anxiety in the health service about the uncertainties caused by the current state of negotiations. Given the reaction of many EU nationals working in the NHS to the climate of opinion in this country, I think we have to be really concerned about future staffing and the workforce pressures that will come around the corner very quickly.

The Long-term Sustainability of the NHS and Adult Social Care

Debate between Lord Hunt of Kings Heath and Baroness McIntosh of Pickering

Thursday 26th April 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

It came from a paper from the Office for Budgetary Responsibility. I believe that it is to be a general rise of around 1% across the board, but I will check that out and place a copy of any letter that I send to the noble Lord in the Library.

The point is this: clearly considerations would need to be given if there were to be a rise in national insurance, such as to its impact on employees and employers. Would it be a tax on jobs? Would it be an increase in taxes on working people, when the main beneficiaries of the NHS are older people who do not pay national insurance? Although national insurance contributions are mostly progressive, they become much less so when you hit the upper earnings limit, where employee contributions decrease from 12% to 2% on incomes over £805 per week. I know some noble Lords believe passionately that this is the way forward, and it is an idea worth exploring, but we have to be realistic about some of the drawbacks.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

If 1% were added to national insurance contributions, what would the cost be to the health service, being the largest employer in the land?

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

I do not know the answer to that but clearly it is another point that has to be factored in, as it would in the care sector more generally. We have already seen this: clearly, it is welcome that the living wage has been introduced, but it has had a knock-on impact when the funding for those services has not gone up at the same time.

I also caution about the desire to create a cross-party approach, as the noble Lord, Lord Patel, asked. Last month, Dr Sarah Wollaston, chair of the Health Select Committee, wrote to the Prime Minister asking for a parliamentary commission on health and care to be established to report on the long-term future funding of the NHS. Today, my noble friend Lord Darzi announced his independent review.

All this is welcome. The more we can debate the pressing need to fund health and social care properly, the more likely it is that the public will support a rise in taxes, which is what I believe this debate is essentially about. But the decision cannot be offshored. In the end, you need a Government with the political will to make the investment necessary, put in place a plan to fix staffing and properly support people to manage their own health care and conditions for the long term. Labour did it. We increased the amount of money going into the health service, reduced waiting times dramatically and invested in the infrastructure. It can be done, but it takes a Government with the political will to do it.

Alongside the issue of funding, we surely have to get on with redesigning the current regulatory and structural mess that the Government have got the NHS into. As the Select Committee report said:

“A culture of short termism seems to prevail in the NHS and … social care”,


with the department,

“unable or unwilling to think beyond the next few years”,

so there is no long-term funding plan and no national long-term strategy on workforce planning. The NHS is seemingly incapable of driving up productivity, using data effectively or adopting new technology quickly, as the Select Committee concluded.

The Health and Social Care Act 2012 has much to answer for. Its conflicting threads have led to fragmentation, friction and confusion. The Act is dominated by obeisance to a competitive market, with economic regulation to the fore. It established lighter touch oversight from the Government, with NHS England created as an arms-length organisation, subject only to an annual mandate, and GPs were supposedly put at the heart of decision-making through their dominance of clinical commissioning groups.

What has been the reality? Competition has proved a very expensive foible. It reached its ultimate folly with the competition authorities intervening in a sensible reconfiguration of service proposals at a cost of millions of pounds. Large parts of the competition regime have now been ditched but, as the Act has not been repealed, NHS bodies are endlessly at risk of legal challenge. As for light-touch oversight, the reality is that NHS England behaves in the way of all state bureaucracies: heavy-handed and highly interventionist. As for GPs being in control, so frustrated have CCG leaders become at their impotence and unwanted role as rationers of services that many have gone back to their surgeries or even retired.

Ministers preside over this with glorious ambiguity, consistently washing their hands of the shambles and performance failures that they and their colleagues created. The Secretary of State humiliatingly calls in the bosses of the so-called independent NHS Improvement, NHS England and CQC for a weekly berating and demand that ever more chief executives be sacked.

When the Sainsbury chief, Roy Griffiths, was asked to look into NHS management in 1983, he said that if Florence Nightingale were to come back to inspect NHS hospitals, she would find no one in charge. I wonder, if that great man were asked to come back to do a report, what he would say about the current arrangement. Actually, I think we have a pretty good idea. The noble Lord, Lord Rose, was asked by the Secretary of State in 2014 to recommend how leadership in NHS trusts could be transformed. By the time he finished, I think the Secretary of State regretted asking the question, because in his report he talked about the level and pace of change being unsustainably high, with the administrative, bureaucratic and regulatory burden fast becoming unstoppable. He talked about a lack of stability and a deep-rooted concern over the many and varied messages sent from the centre of government. Indeed, not surprisingly, the report died the death. We continue with a huge system that is under huge pressure, underfunded, under-resourced with people, and yet it is having to cope with one of the most complex, conflicting administrative systems ever seen.

One thing I particularly welcome in the report of the noble Lord, Lord Patel, is that he did not confine himself just to funding. He talked about the culture and some of the other issues that need to be tackled. The report is excellent, and we have an excellent debate ahead of us. I hope that the Government will listen. It is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Patel, who has shown such leadership in chairing the Select Committee and presenting his report so well this morning.