Professional Qualifications Bill [HL]

Lord Purvis of Tweed Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 22nd June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

My Lords, it is nice to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes. Clearly, she and I were doing the same thing on Sunday afternoon; when everyone else was out enjoying the rain, we were sitting at our computers waiting for letters from the Minister. When I have finished speaking to Amendments 63 and 68, I am sure that, if he were to indicate the Government’s willingness in principle to accept them, the House would give him leave to give such an indication and save us from having to go through the whole group.

In respect of Amendments 45 and 46, respectively moved and tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, it is clearly right that an arm’s-length regulator, which now also includes the Legal Services Board, should not have the same legal requirements to provide regulators’ information to the assistance centre, and nor should it be caught by the other requirements that apply to front- line regulators.

As we have heard, 160 professions were originally caught by this legislation; as late as the Minister’s letter to me of 18 June, it was still 160 professions. The first time round, of course, it was the 57 varieties in the letter to the noble Baronesses, Lady Noakes and Lady Garden, on 24 May. As the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, said, even the new list is “indicative”, although we were not told that the first list was indicative. I received the Minister’s letter at 2.16 pm on Sunday afternoon with some amusement because, as the noble Baroness said, we now have 60 regulators and about 200 professions. As I think she indicated, you really could not make it up.

Legislation has been drafted without the department even knowing which bodies are covered. It has then had to correct or revise it quickly afterwards to add, for example, recognised supervisory bodies, because it has just realised that the Companies Act and the Statutory Auditors and Third Country Auditors Regulations include them. As we heard, the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales has been added. We had specifically been told on 5 June, and again as late as 18 June, that the ICAEW was not included; we now find that it is. As the Minister’s letter was not private, I shared a copy of it with the ICAEW. It emailed to say that

“it feels like government seem to be rushing through this legislation without having thought through the detail of the Bill and its consequences, and parliamentarians”—

I think that means us—

“are now having to try and fix this. For the list of regulators and professions affected by this Bill to have changed so substantially while the legislation is being scrutinised … does not help give certainty on such an important and wide-ranging legislative measure—a point hopefully the Minister would recognise.”

I mentioned the Legal Services Board, which is now included in the list when it was not before, but the list still lists the Law Society of England and Wales as the regulator of solicitors. I would have thought that it would be more appropriate for the Solicitors Regulation Authority to be listed. The SRA has written to me, to say:

“We would support the SRA being named on the face of the bill”.


It is rather surprised that the Law Society is mentioned. That was undoubtedly correct under the Legal Services Act 2007, but it should now be the SRA because it has recently been established as a legal entity. Clearly, even what we had on Sunday still needs correcting, and it needs correcting now, rather than at some point in the future.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, said, the Minister’s letter says that the Government are still testing the list, and will make it public only after that. That really is not sufficient. The Government should not only know which bodies will be covered but have consulted them prior to drafting the Bill. It is no good finding out now that new regulators have not had the chance to put their pennyworth in, and that their specific remit, structure and the way they work clearly cannot have been considered because they have not been consulted.

I think that the noble Baroness and I both agree that it is also not adequate, even when the list is finalised, simply to have it available somewhere in the ether once the Bill is enacted. How are professions regulated by these bodies, or indeed foreign professionals who might want to be authorised here, to know whether the Bill covers them and whether it covers a list of regulators? Saying that there is a list on GOV.UK is insufficient, because who would know to look there to see whether there was a list of regulators covered by the Bill?

This is a powerful Bill. It will enable a Minister to mandate a supposedly independent regulator to put certain processes in place—our Delegated Powers Committee calls it a Henry VIII power. These professions are regulated in law but supposedly with an arm’s-length approach, up till now, as to how they gain and retain their professional standing. A new law would give powers to Ministers over these professional regulators. How can it be possible that those regulators are not listed in the Bill? Of course it must be possible to add or subtract regulators as they change their titles or merge—the sort of thing that happens over time—but it cannot be right to add in a new regulator at the whim of a Minister with no by your leave from Parliament and no mention in legislation.

Amendment 63 would therefore add in a reference to a schedule listing the regulators covered by the Bill, and Amendment 68 comprises that proposed new schedule. As the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, suggested, given that it was a copy-and-paste, it is not now as accurate as I thought it was when I tabled the amendment. That is not my fault; the list was from the Minister’s original letter. Unless the Minister will now accept the amendment in principle, the amendment I will table on Report will be the corrected version. Perhaps by then the Minister will have been able to confirm that all statutory bodies covered by the Bill have been identified and consulted, and to provide us with a list of which of those 60 regulators do not already have the power to recognise overseas qualifications and therefore might not even need the Minister’s authorisation, as allowed for in the Bill. As I said, if the Minister will indicate now that he accepts this in principle, then I am sure that we can shortcut this.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, I have been a Member of a Parliament—either the Scottish Parliament or this Parliament—for nearly 18 years now. I cannot remember a government proposal for legislation that is so catch-all and which would have powers to amend primary legislation with whatever it wants, by whoever it wants, whenever it sees fit. For the Government not to know who the Bill will apply to while it goes through Parliament is unacceptable. Therefore, although I support all the amendments in the group, I also support the call for the Government to take their foot off the accelerator and pause, so that not just Parliament but the Government themselves can properly scrutinise who will be impacted by the Bill.

In many respects we have an indicative Bill, not an indicative list of bodies. We should not have indicative Bills presented to us. If the Government want to do this properly, there are well-established measures for presenting draft Bills. A draft Bill would probably have fleshed out all these aspects, and allowed those groups to indicate whether or not they will be part of the framework, whether they want to be part of it, or whether they desperately do not want to be. At least we would have known. When I say “we”, I want to be all-inclusive, and I include the Minister—he would have known as well.

It is not just a question of whether the Government know which regulators and regulated professions will be in the framework. The impact assessment also includes a number of those that will not be in the framework, which is equally important. Do the Government also know this list? Otherwise, there might be some horrible kind of purgatory, where some of these bodies do not know whether they are on the way to legislation, and so are in a holding pattern, or whether they will not be part of it.

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[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Duncan of Springbank) (Con)]

My Lords, I have received two requests to speak after the Minister, from the noble Lord, Lord Purvis of Tweed, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter of Kentish Town. I will call them in that order.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, on the Australian point, I think the Statement on the Australian agreement will be repeated in this House, and I will pursue that aspect with the Minister there; so he has advance notice. What he just said at the Dispatch Box does not tally with what he sent me in letters, with accompanying documentation, about services and the recognition of professional qualifications. My questions to the Minister are on the back of this.

This place will scrutinise legislation but also the Government’s proposals. We have no proposals from the Government to scrutinise because they have not brought forward proposals on what they want to do with some of these powers, so we are struggling. On the specific point of the list, it is not just the regulator bodies that should be on a list. The list is meaningful if we know what the bodies are with regards to the professional qualifications.

On the regulated professions database, the entry for pig farmers shows that they are regulated by legislation. No one has ever denied that is the case because anybody involved in livestock maintenance or husbandry in this country operates under the welfare of farmed animals regulations. On the database, there are the Welfare of Farmed Animals (England) Regulations, the Welfare of Farmed Animals (Scotland) Regulations—there is no reference to any for Scotland on the list—the Welfare of Farmed Animals (Wales) Regulations, and the Welfare of Farmed Animals Regulations (Northern Ireland). Further down it has a box:

“Qualification level: NA—Not applicable”.


If the Bill is about recognising professional qualifications for someone wanting to become a pig farmer in any component part of the United Kingdom, and there are no applicable qualifications for it, why is it on this list? We know that a farmer is regulated by laws, and lots of them, but that is irrelevant for the purposes of the Bill. It is of concern because, if it is in the Bill, it will fall foul of all the different requirements under the Bill.

I want to ask a second question with regard to the list and say why it has to be meaningful. Incidentally, we have raised farriers previously; the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, did so. Farriers remain on the list, so I looked up the Farriers Registration Council. It says that the route to be a farrier is through an apprenticeship; there is no qualification route as an automatic mechanism which can be recognised by someone else. All the professions under the list which have apprenticeship routes are not covered by Clause 1, so where would they be covered? That is the concern that this list generates. It is not just about what is or is not on it; what does it mean by being on it?

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[Lord Grimstone of Boscobel (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord. When I earlier impolitely snapped at the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, and said to read the Explanatory Memorandum, I was not saying that with any disrespect. This Bill, as we have just acknowledged, is about professional qualifications. It has a broad long title and one sees from the Explanatory Memorandum that it covers a number of matters that affect regulators and professional qualifications, additional to the mere mutual recognition of professional qualifications from overseas. You could easily say that Clauses 1, 2, 3 and 4, allowing recognition arrangements, are the heart of the Bill. But at the same time, as I said—and we have obviously not tried to hide this, as it is stated in the Bill—it covers various other matters in relation to regulators in the United Kingdom.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, the point from the noble Lord, Lord Fox, about the internal market Act remains valid. An entire part of that Act, Part 3, relates to professional qualifications. Under this Bill, a UK resident will be someone who, under a trade agreement, is entitled to practise. Under the internal market Act, that qualification is automatically recognised in another part of the UK, other than for those professions that are excluded. Can the Minister be very clear? Where does Clause 9 sit in relation to the internal market Act, given that that Act requires automatic recognition for a person’s qualifications in another part of the United Kingdom? Is it not just more bureaucracy, as has been suggested?

[Lord Grimstone of Boscobel (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for that question. The way I see it is that the UKIM Act introduced a principle of automatic recognition of professional qualifications gained in one part of the UK, as well as provisions for the equal treatment of individuals who obtain their qualifications in a particular UK nation and those who obtain theirs in other parts of the UK. Clause 9 merely supports professionals as they seek recognition in another part of the UK by providing a legislative underpinning to information shared by regulators with their counterparts in another part of the UK. This is entirely about information sharing. It is not about the recognition of professional qualifications.

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[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord McNicol of West Kilbride) (Lab)]

I have received one request, so far, to speak after the Minister. I call the noble Lord, Lord Purvis of Tweed.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for indicating that we will have more information on Report, but we have been asking some questions of concern since Second Reading, so I think the very least the Minister and the Government can do before we start Report, and indeed before the deadline for amendments on Report, is to provide information. Otherwise, it is pointless once we are on Report.

My question follows up a question from the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, on trade deals to which the Minister referred. In an earlier group, in response to a question I had about legal services in the Australia deal, the Minister categorical ruled out that there would be mutual recognition of lawyers in the Australia deal to try to allay my fears that it would override the internal market Bill. The attachment in the Minister’s letter to me, which is about the agreement in principle, has a specific paragraph:

“Legal services provisions which will both guarantee that UK and Australian lawyers can advise clients and provide arbitration, mediation and conciliation services in the other country’s territory using their original qualifications and title”.


If that is not a new agreement on professional qualifications that will have to be implemented by this legislation, in which the Minister is intending to using a Henry VIII power rather than primary legislation under previous commitments, how on earth can we trust any other commitments about intent from the Dispatch Box?

[Lord Grimstone of Boscobel (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, for that. I really believe that we have to wait until we see the detailed text of the Australia FTA, which will be subject to proper scrutiny. I think if there is one thing that the noble Lord and I agree on, it is the need for proper scrutiny of free trade agreements once the text is available. Trying to debate these free trade agreements purely on the basis of brief references to what they say is not something that I believe either he or I would feel is satisfactory.

Coming back to his earlier point, I will communicate with noble Lords as fully as can before Report on the matters to which he referred.

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[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interest, having in prior years been a long-standing member of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee. I echo the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, that its report on the Bill and the use of secondary legislation makes telling and worrying reading. Before I cover that, I place on record my thanks to my noble friend Lord Grimstone for his response to my speech earlier and the constructive way in which he handled that. Also, it is important for the Committee to place on record that he has sought to catch the mood of the House rather than to counter it by speaking “note rote”. That is a notable parliamentary and diplomatic skill, and he has done it more capably than many Ministers that I have heard in nearly 40 years in both Houses. However, as he knows, that does not negate the challenges that the Government face with this Bill on its passage through the House.

Most of the substantive changes to this Bill are envisaged to be undertaken by the Executive. As the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, has said, there is a creeping growth of secondary legislation. Some of it is understood in the context of the huge number of statutory instruments following Brexit, but both Houses need to review and reverse that process, otherwise we will be in a situation where the balance of power between the Executive and the legislature is out of kilter. Parliament must be consulted. My noble friend Lord Grimstone said that many of the Bill’s aspects would be under rigorous scrutiny with interested parties; it is even more important that they are under rigorous scrutiny with Parliament.

The noble Lords, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath and Lord Patel, when talking about Henry VIII powers, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, on the lack of detailed parliamentary scrutiny, made eloquent contributions to what is relevant not only to the very light-touch but important amendment in the name of my noble friend Lady Sanderson but to the wider use of secondary legislation, because there is a significant difference between negative and affirmative resolution. With negative, there is no requirement to approve the SIs for them to become law, and with the affirmative, there is a far higher degree of scrutiny sought, with the three forms of high and appropriate scrutiny that are well known to every Member of the House. That is why, wherever possible, Parliament should insist that as much as possible is on the face of the Bill, and why resorting to secondary legislation should be kept to an absolute minimum. It is with those comments in mind and made that I believe, not only in the context of Amendment 58 but throughout the Bill, that we need to return on Report to make sure that there is appropriate parliamentary scrutiny throughout.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 60 in my noble friend’s name, and I will speak to Amendments 65,66 and 67 in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Fox. This is a very short debate which in many respects reinforces points made in other groups, but it can be divided into two areas: first, the necessity of avoiding, where at all possible, using secondary legislation to amend primary legislation, as the previous group have indicated; and, secondly, to have an argument about pausing not just the Bill but the implementation of an Act before the Government have their policy ducks in a row.

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The noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, has gone but, basically, I am going to suggest to the Minister the same as she did. He should do one of two things: add this amendment right at the start of the Bill on Report to provide the assurances that we are all demanding; or amend the Bill so that its powers to allow a Minister to amend a regulator’s freedom to consider that sort of mutual agreement occur only at the request of the regulator and not at the behest of a Minister. Or, of course, he could throw the Bill away and start again. I beg to move.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, we started Committee with an amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Fox. It sought to establish at the very outset of the Bill the principle that nothing in it would have a negative impact on the autonomy of our regulators. I am glad that we are able to say—well, not quite “We told you so”, but certainly the fact is that we have learned little in Committee that has meant that the case is not even stronger, so reassurance needs to be provided in the Bill.

The powers in Clause 1 could be extensive when it comes to individual applications. The powers in Clause 4 could be forced on a regulator. The powers in Clause 3 could implement elements of trade agreements on regulators in all four parts of the United Kingdom with little scrutiny or accountability. In reverse order, on the trade side, during the debate on the previous group, the Minister sought to give the impression that the regulatory powers were needed to implement trade agreements and the professional qualifications elements of those agreements because, without those powers, we would not able to implement international agreements and therefore may need to act urgently. Clearly, I have not been following in Committee because, by definition, these regulators are statutory. If the Government’s statement that a treaty would be implemented by primary legislation is correct, that would be the vehicle—when that treaty is being implemented—to make changes to any of the legislation of those regulators. I simply cannot understand why a Henry VIII power is necessary for that.

On forcing the regulators to enter into mutual recognition agreements, if the Government are saying that this measure is purely enabling, there is a degree of merit in that. However, in Committee, we have heard that such enabling could go beyond and add extra pressure. In Clause 1, the powers on the application process are extensive. Whether we have a declarative statement at the outset or the protections that would be brought about by this amendment, there will have to be protections. If the Government genuinely want to avoid a situation where this Bill either must be paused or does not progress at all—my understanding is that the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, is absolutely correct that Bills starting in this place are not subject to the Parliament Act and that the Minister therefore has to be nicer to us—they must provide reassurance. That can happen now only through much greater detail about the organisations and regulators that will be impacted by this, as well as about certain areas of draft regulations along the lines of what the Government would really want to use these powers for. Without meaningful reassurances, this Bill has significant difficulties.

[Baroness Noakes (Con)]

My Lords, I need to say very little, other than that I support what the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, and the noble Lord, Lord Purvis of Tweed, have said. I know my noble friend has heard the strength of feeling in Committee, about the importance of regulator autonomy. I think there is agreement in Committee, though not necessarily yet with my noble friend the Minister, that something needs to be in the Bill to recognise that.

I hope that by the time we get to Report, if indeed there is a Report stage on this Bill, the Government will have taken ownership of the issue, because I am afraid that if they do not the House will.