Legal Services Bill [HL]

I am grateful to my noble friend for moving this amendment. I thank the Minister for paying tribute to the recommendation of the Joint Committee. I will try to square the circle here. Although I agreed with my noble friend that the issue has to be proportionate, we considered it very carefully in the Joint Committee, and took evidence from the existing regulators. The Bar Council and the Law Society told us that they had already taken steps to meet Sir David Clementi’s recommendation that there should be a separation between the regulatory and the representative elements of their work. ILEX indicated that it accepted the need for a separation and would complete the process of splitting its regulatory and representative functions by the end of last year. CIPA and ITMA said that they could implement such a split if required to do so. I refer to question 228 and the answers given by Dr Harrison and Philip Harris. We were told that the notarial profession already distinguishes between regulatory and representative functions, and the issue did not arise for the CLC, which is a purely regulatory body with no representative functions. That is why we concluded that the draft Bill should be amended to require approved regulators to separate fully their regulatory and representative functions. I have to say that we did not receive any evidence that Chinese walls or some similar procedure was necessary with some of the smaller regulators; rather the contrary. We received reassurance that they were perfectly able to implement the split. Therefore, I feel slightly confused as to why this evidence has arisen now that separation is not complete, particularly as we spent some considerable time in the Joint Committee considering the position before we reached our conclusion.