Legal Services Bill [HL]

My Lords, I will make a very brief intervention about a question of confidence between the Legal Services Board and the profession. The Bar Council, for example, or individual barristers can make whatever representations they like to the Legal Services Board and the Consumer Panel. I have no doubt that such representations will be taken into account, but I am sure that the Bar Council, the Law Society and other representative bodies will want to work in partnership with the Legal Services Board. In doing so, they will want to take their members with them. They need to persuade their members that they are taking them with them. A requirement to consult would give practitioners, particularly in the larger parts of the legal profession, confidence that the Legal Services Board will really listen to representations. I do not myself believe that the amendments would make any real difference to the process that will be carried out but they might make a very significant difference to the level of confidence that exists between, for example, the Bar—my own profession—and the Legal Services Board.