Legal Services Bill [HL]

My Lords, again I have to say that I am extremely disappointed with the reply of the noble Baroness. It is not as if there are not plenty of lay persons on the regulatory bodies. A great deal has been made about the desirability of having a high percentage of lay representatives on the Legal Services Board; but is the noble Baroness aware that a large number of non-legal lay representatives serve on the boards of the authorised regulators? Listening to the Government promoting their Bill during the Committee stage, one might be forgiven for assuming that the Bar Standards Board and its equivalent in the solicitors’ profession consist solely of lawyers, thus generating the myth that lawyers are regulating themselves. Here I repeat myself, in my view with good reason, in saying that a high percentage of individuals within the authorised regulators themselves are not qualified lawyers. Given that, why do we need to be so demanding about the definition of lay members generally? If the Government do not like my amendment, which provides for a period of 10 years not practising, why do they not go for a more demanding period, such as 20 or 25 years? That would at least include a large number of people who happen to have taken a degree in law or who practised as solicitors or barristers at the beginning of their career and therefore might be extremely good candidates. The Government are excluding all that talent.