Legal Services Bill [Lords]

I welcome the Bill, which addresses serious issues regarding the regulation of solicitors, barristers and other legal professionals. It builds on the work of Sir David Clementi, whose report has been its cornerstone. I echo the tributes that have been paid to his work. The Bill has important allies. The president of the Law Society, Fiona Woolf, has said that the society"““has consistently supported the principles of the Bill””." Jill Johnstone, the director of policy at the National Consumer Council, also welcomed the Bill asking that "““MPs…give these consumer-friendly reforms a smooth passage through Parliament””." Which? has been a strong supporter of the measure and, especially, moves to tackle complaints involving solicitors more effectively. I join the Minister in paying tribute to the work of my right hon. Friend Lord Hunt of Wirral, who chaired the Joint Committee expertly. The Committee gave the Bill effective pre-legislative scrutiny over a short time scale. My hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr. Burrowes), a practising solicitor, also brought his insight to the Committee’s work. It was a sign of the Joint Committee’s effectiveness that the Minister in the other place was able to concede many of the points that it made. Improvements were made to the Bill in the other place and it was to be hoped that the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, the hon. Member for Lewisham, East (Bridget Prentice), would accept that the Bill was now much better than when it started its passage. I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend Lord Kingsland, who played a big part in improving the Bill. I agree with the Minister that it is right that consumers should be able to challenge their lawyers effectively when things go wrong and that complaints should be efficiently handled. However, it is also vital that lawyers should be free to act for their clients without Government interference. The Government should not be able to use consumer rights as a cloak to attack people’s basic civil liberty of having a genuinely independent lawyer acting on their behalf. Legal services make up a major economic sector that is valued at about £20 billion and they generate almost 2 per cent. of the UK’s gross domestic product. It is estimated that UK legal services exports amount to £2 billion a year. London is a major centre for international commercial litigation and arbitration, and English law is widely used as the basis for many international business transactions. The legal profession is large. There are 14,000 practising barristers, 97,000 practising solicitors, thousands of legal executives and hundreds of licensed conveyers, registered trade mark attorneys and public notaries. Not-for-profit organisations such as citizens advice bureaux and law centres also provide much-needed legal advice. An independent legal profession provides legal services to some of the most vulnerable in our society. Indeed, many lawyers enter the profession with a vocation to help to right wrongs. It is an important check on government that lawyers in Britain will take on public authorities and the Government in court without fear or favour, often in cases that are not popular with the public. Indeed, it was reported only today that prisoners were taking the Lord Chancellor to court to ask not to sit around in prison idly all day, but to be able to work purposefully towards their rehabilitation.