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Legal Services Bill [HL]

I completely respect and accept what the noble and learned Lord says about the importance of the legal professions. Nothing that I have said is meant to imply other than the importance of the role that they and, separately, the judiciary play and the value that we place on them. I am simply trying to elaborate the fact that a regulatory regime covering how the consumer, customer, client or whatever relates to someone who is providing a service should have a framework around it, and that is what we have sought to do. I have already indicated that I understand that noble Lords around the Chamber see a need to think about independence as being of especial importance because of the nature of the profession that we are describing. I do not believe that I have a solution before me that I could possibly accept, but that does not mean that the issue is not in my mind.