Legal Services Bill [HL]

I suppose I need to respond to the noble Lord. I apologise that I was not in the Chamber at the beginning of his speech, which I hope was slightly more constructive than some of the rest of his remarks. I came in when he said that I am the lone voice of the consumer. I know we are fairly sparse at this stage of the evening, but it would be deeply regrettable if in the course of this Bill I was the only person who felt it necessary to speak primarily on behalf of consumers. I think he corrected himself a little later on and began to talk about the consumer interest. I accept entirely that the consumer interest is not always served by greater competition. Some competition can drive out the best and reduce standards. In general, though, where we have loosened up the markets over the past 30 years, the consumer interest has been served by increased competition—not always, but in general. That has had to be accompanied by effective regulation in the consumer interest and in the interest of the stability of supply of the service or goods. The Bill seems to do both. It cautiously advances a bit of competition. Compared with every other market we have changed over the past 30 years, this is pretty cautious. The extension of allowing legal services to be conducted in a multidisciplinary firm or to be invested in by non-lawyer interests seems to give great scope for providing more, better and more sophisticated and integrated one-stop shop—although I know the noble Lord does not like that term—services. In my small town there are almost as many lawyers as there are estate agents, and almost as many again as mortgage brokers. For most consumers, it would be jolly handy if those services were all in one firm when they were conducting the biggest financial investment that they will make in their lives.