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Legal Services Bill [HL]

I hope that in this debate we will go beyond comforting words to a little more precision about how the Government intend to ensure that the general principle of proportionality, to which they have given assent, will be reflected in the Bill in a manner that reassures those who have been engaged in dialogue with the Government from the two organisations that regulate a relatively small number of specialist attorneys—the Chartered Institute of Patent Agents and the Institute of Trademark Attorneys—that their particular problems have been recognised. I have been advised that those organisations have been in direct dialogue with the department and that the language of the amendment is particularly addressed to deal with their concerns. When looking at the Bill, one has to consider whether by embracing their concerns one may be opening up wider problems, but, on the face of it, the recommendations embodied in this useful amendment seem to go a long way towards spelling out the apprehended opportunities for a disproportionate response to the regulation of relatively small regulators. I view this as a valuable opportunity not only to probe the Government’s benevolent general intentions in these matters—““beneficent”” might be better than ““benevolent””—but also to probe how they are approaching this. We will come back to the issue of proportionality on the broader canvas on later amendments.