---

Legal Services Bill [HL]

I want to explore further exactly what the Minister means. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Maclennan, that the patent and trademark attorneys will be very grateful for the opportunity to go through their concerns in detail, and I welcome the way in which she proposed it. However, my point was that the larger regulators, too, feel that the balance is not yet right. Although the Bill is generally welcomed, the new chairman of theBar Council, Geoffrey Vos QC, made the following point, which I would like the Minister to deal with. He said: "““When it comes to the proposed oversight regulator … the thresholds allowing it””—" the LSB— "““to intervene in the day-to-day work of frontline regulators are set too low””." That, of course, is a matter for the Bill to make clear. I hope at some stage as we go through the Bill that the Minister will be able to satisfy us either that the thresholds will be changed or that we need something akin to the excellent amendment of my noble friend Lord Kingsland to make that clear up front in the Bill.