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?