Question to the Department for Exiting the European Union :

To ask Her Majesty's Government what is the timetable for the certification of professional qualifications to be agreed through mutual recognition under the Brexit negotiations for doctors, lawyers, architects and other professions.

As the Prime Minister set out in her Mansion House speech, the UK is committed to a continued system for the mutual recognition of professional qualifications as part of a bold and ambitious future economic partnership.

In December, the UK Government agreed in the Joint Report with the EU the continued recognition of qualifications for frontier workers and residents, where recognition decisions were received or where recognition procedures were ongoing, before the withdrawal date. This will include qualifications recognised under the MRPQ Directive (Directive 2005/36/EC), as well as lawyers practising under host title and approved statutory auditors, which are currently covered separately in EU legislation.

The Government is firmly committed to the agreement in December and we are working with the Commission to agree how they should be translated into legal form in the Withdrawal Agreement. We are committed to turning the Joint Report into legal text as soon as possible and it remains our shared aim to reach agreement on the entire Withdrawal Agreement by October.