Legal Services Bill [HL]

My Lords, I hear what my noble friend said but I still seek a little clarification. I shall be brief. I declare an interest; although I have no intention of applying for a position chairing the board, my position may illustrate some of the problems. I qualified for the Bar very many years ago, in 1969. I practised intermittently during the 1970s and ceased when I first chaired a Select Committee in the other place, and I really have had no contact with the Bar, save for social purposes, for over 25 years. The assumption of the amendment in the other place is surely that somehow as a result I am tainted and cannot give an objective position. Certainly, the populist view against lawyers—although I did find it in the other place—is not something that I found reflected very widely when I was in the other place for 30 years. It is as if, by having qualified at some stage, however long one has remained away from the Bar, one is somehow tainted and cannot expunge from one’s record what was a minor offence many years ago. Like a minor shoplifting offence, it is impossible to erase or expunge and therefore one’s judgment necessarily cannot be objective. I have no personal interest or motive in seeking to chair this body, but I ask my noble friend to go a little along this way. Is it reasonable or is it just a populist revulsion to say that those who for many years have had no contact with the legal profession are still deemed for this purpose to be professional and are therefore excluded from consideration for the chair?