Legal Services Bill [HL]

It does not result in the full panoply of business structures. That is why I made the point about low risk. We can take one of two views. The first is that, if we are to make structural changes in the way that the legal profession works, we should do so in a cautious, measured and appropriate way, recognising concerns that companies may swoop in and take over legal firms in the high street, bringing with them all kinds of negative practices in their relationship with the client, and so on—I exaggerate, but not much; that proposition has been put to me. On the other hand, we could say, ““Well, it’s okay if the lawyers have a couple of people in. One is head of business development, one is head of finance, and they can do what they like because they are lawyers and, anyway, we are only talking about a couple of people””. We are in a very difficult and, I suggest, dangerous world. A proper regulatory framework might have the flexibility for people to say, ““People coming into our legal firms as partners are able to offer real expertise, support the profession appropriately and provide proper and appropriate legal services””. However, to say that they should not be people of influence or that such matters can be left to the firms is to say, ““Well, it’s okay in that set of circumstances but it’s not okay in other sets of circumstances””. There needs to be an appropriate response, which we believe we have in Part 5, bearing in mind everything that I have already said. That response says, ““If you make changes, you need to make them properly and recognise that we want to ensure that legal services are provided appropriately””. The noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Wirral, is undoubtedly right that in the vast majority of cases these people are of high quality and they provide extra services. However, occasionally one or two individuals could have enormous influence on the direction of a legal firm that could alter the access to justice provisions and the regulatory framework objectives and so on. So we have said that we require a gentle and light-touch approach but one that, none the less, recognises that there has been a change.