Legal Services Bill [HL]

An average member of the public listening to this discussion might feel that it is about protecting the incomes of lawyers, as indeed it is. All noble Lords who have taken part are legally qualified, and when the Minister gets up to respond, she will be the first person after me who is not. We know that the public are a bit suspicious of the money that lawyers make, but, in an area with a relatively low population, people depend on competition between small legal firms. As a consumer of the law in such an area, I know that. Moreover, lawyers often compare notes about what is going to happen, who is going to do what and, I suspect, the fees that people will charge, although I do not know that. This may be a terrible thing to say, but the public depend on this kind of competition. If a large alternative business structure arrives in an area—one might even arrive in my area if there is a branch in Scotland—it might wreck the system. In simple terms, that is what many of the high-powered lawyers whom we are lucky to have in this House are saying. The Government should consider the amendment carefully, or at any rate its spirit, because we do not want access to justice through competition among lawyers in less populated areas to be wrecked by the Bill.