Legal Services Bill [HL]

My Lords, I take the noble Lord’s point, but let me try again. The point that I am making is that this is a Consumer Panel that, under the terms of the Bill, does not have on it people who are qualified practising lawyers. Those who are not practising but might be legally qualified will, in our view, be appropriate to sit on the panel, because they would be representing their corporate body or organisation in a different way. That is the fundamental principle behind what we are seeking to do with the Consumer Panel. We want a range of people who, as the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Wirral, was absolutely right to say, are representative of the different kinds of organisations and individuals who consume legal services, but we want to look specifically for people who are not themselves practising legal professionals. They may be qualified, but they will be acting as a corporate consumer, a small business consumer or an individual consumer in this context. It is an important point, but it does not take away from ensuring that a range of voices is heard on the Consumer Panel. This is deliberately designed to be about the role of the consumer, not the consumer as a lawyer talking about legal services.