Legal Services Bill [Lords]

I want to thank the Minister for the amendments that she is making in respect of ““legal practice plus””—allowing people other than lawyers to join lawyers in a practice earlier than the full introduction of the alternative business structure scheme, which will probably be around 2011. I argued in Committee that there should be more flexibility, and as the hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Djanogly) said, Sir David Clementi's report and the Joint Committee recommended this incremental approach to introducing the provisions. These amendments do provide for a more incremental approach, so I thank the Minister for that. Like the hon. Gentleman, I also thank the Minister for having regard to the concerns expressed about the difficulty in rural areas of coping with the changes that alternative business structures might bring to access to justice. It is not necessarily all one way, however, in that there might in future be innovative ways of delivering businesses between different types of professionals that actually enhance access to justice, rather than take it away. That point was illustrated by the exchange between the hon. Gentleman and the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr. Field). I remind Members of the success of Which? in Scotland, with its super-complaint about the Scottish legal system, and of the decision by the Office of Fair Trading on 31 July. The OFT concluded that the restrictions in question were unnecessary, and it believes that there would be benefits to consumers if they were lifted, such as efficiency gains and higher levels of innovation in the provision of legal services. So although it is right that we have regard to the people's worries about the loss of access to justice, we ought to bear in mind the possible benefits to consumers, including residents of rural areas, of introducing alternative business structures and the innovations that they might well bring.