Legal Services Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 14: 14: Schedule 1 , page 112, line 26, leave out ““never been”” and insert ““not within the last ten years practised as”” The noble Lord said: My Lords, I can make this point exceedingly telegraphically. This amendment is about the definition of a lay member. Your Lordships may recall that the first chairman of the Legal Services Board is required by the schedule to be a lay member. The schedule goes on to define what characteristics a lay member should have, one of which is that he should never have been an authorised person as defined under the Bill. In Committee, I suggested that where someone had very early in their career acquired a legal qualification—perhaps a law degree and had gone on to qualify professionally—but thereafter had practised for only a very short time and then had 10, 15, 20 or even more years doing something else, it would be undesirable to exclude that person from being a candidate for the chairmanship of the Legal Services Board. The noble Baroness said that she would think about it. She has now had time to think about it and I should be most interested to hear her response. I beg to move.