Legal Services Bill [HL]

The Minister is quoting Sir David Clementi, and particularly Part F of his report. Yet he did not recommend the alternative business structures that we are now talking about—far from it. Therefore, I do not see that the noble Baroness can really plead Sir David’s recommendations in support of what she is now proposing. Obviously, I wait to hear the reaction of my noble friend, but I wonder whether the Minister appreciates the fact that, within a law firm, the head of human resources is the head of human resources. He or she has all the power and influence of being head of HR, and the same applies to the heads of IT and finance and so on. We are talking about an artificial structure in which those people are currently prevented from being partners in a practice. There may be only one such partner in a 200-partner practice, but at the moment they are restricted by not being allowed to become partners or part-owners. It most cases, they would play a very small role and their influence would not really increase, but this artificial barrier would be removed. In these amendments, the City of London Law Society is seeking to ensure that this small change does not immediately result in the full panoply of alternative business structures.