Legal Services Bill [HL]

My Lords, I am most grateful to the Minister for her response. What she said about Amendment No. 417 will have gone some way to appeasing the concerns of the two small regulators who were really behind the promotion of the amendment. I recognise that she is against an amendment that specifies the component parts of proportionality; indeed, having heard the cogent way she has argued the point, I have some sympathy for her. On Amendment No. 433, as the Minister will be aware, there is a specific difficulty for the patent and trademark regulators because of their relationship with their own members. There would be nothing to prevent the patent and trademark attorneys leaving their societies but, unlike the case of barristers and solicitors, continuing to practise as patent and trademark attorneys. That is likely to happen unless the terms of the amendment are what happens in practice. I accept entirely that the Minister hopes that the practice by the Legal Services Board will be as set out in Amendment No. 433. Nevertheless, there is no compulsion, and, were it to be the case that the board went beyond the stipulations she has laid down, that could have an extremely adverse on those two small regulators. Still, I am aware that the Minister has strained to provide me with the answers I hoped to get, and in those circumstances I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.