Legal Services Bill [HL]

My Lords, I venture to take part in this debate because a large part of my practice for the past 25 years has taken place abroad—from practising in foreign countries and from receiving work from foreign countries. That, I am told, contributes something like £2 billion a year to our balance of payments—not personally, I am sorry to say. One of the reasons why the English legal profession gets work from abroad is that we are seen to be independent. My main country of practice is one where the standard of lawyers is extremely high and there is no need to consult the English Bar—particularly me—for greater legal knowledge. But what that country values is that the English legal profession is totally free from government pressure, interference or influence. That is not true of most of the countries from which work comes to the English Bar. There is a very serious risk that that trade will be damaged if it is thought that the English legal profession has lost that independence from government. I am not saying that that will have happened, but we are talking about perceptions and, frankly, the clients that I am talking about are punters of considerable importance who fully understand what is going on. They do not think that the Lord Chief Justice is just another lawyer—they know well what he is; they have seen him; they have Lord Chief Justices themselves. There is a great risk that that trade—for which I no longer receive much benefit, so I am not defending my own income—will very seriously be damaged unless it is made abundantly plain on the face of the Bill that this system of regulation is totally independent of government. That is what I intended to say principally, but I cannot let pass the outrageous words of the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, without some comment. To suggest that the Lord Chief Justice is the same as a press tycoon is outrageous, unfair and totally inaccurate. After all, he is not the customer with whom the board will be dealing; he is an independent person who will receive the product of its work. It is in his interest to see that the board works well and produces good lawyers. It is not the judges who will receive the disbenefit of errors if the board gets it wrong. I really think, first, that the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, on reflection, should apologise and, secondly, that we should ignore his remarks.