Legal Services Bill [HL]

Once again, I am grateful for the Minister's reply. Towards the end of her observations, the Minister prayed in aid the negative procedure as a guarantee that the regulations would reflect the desires that we have for financial discipline in the LSB. Unfortunately, as she well knows, there is a convention in this House that we pray against instruments of that kind only in the most exceptional circumstances, circumstances which usually involve matters pertaining to the constitution. I therefore wonder whether we should be as confident as the Minister about that safeguard. She might consider shifting the procedure from a negative to an affirmative procedure. I am sure that she will be reflecting on that between now and Report. The Minister kindly said that she would write to us in response to the question posed by my noble friend Lady Carnegy of Lour, but she trespassed on that ground a little in her answer when she referred to the healthcare regulator. She said that the healthcare regulator was financed entirely by the Government because it was important to demonstrate that it was wholly distinct from the medical profession. But the provisions that the Government have inserted in the Bill about the separation between the representative and the regulatory role of the professions achieves precisely the same objective. I put it to the Minister that the legal profession is in fact in exactly the same position under these regulatory arrangements as the medical profession is under the healthcare regulator. The Minister has kindly agreed to write and I will let her off the hook. But I would be content if she reflected on the matter and came back to me in writing if she thinks she has a more powerful case than the one that I outlined.