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Legal Services Bill [HL]

The third option is that I will convince the noble Lord that the thresholds are right. I am grateful to Geoffrey Vos who has been to see me to discuss this. I know that the Bar Council in particular and other regulators are looking to ensure that the descriptions that we have given in your Lordships’ House and another place have clarified the essence of what we are trying to do. We will talk about thresholds later on in Committee, and I hope that, as we go through the Bill with Members of your Lordships’ House and with those who will be regulated, I will be able to say more to address their concerns directly. We should bear in mind that the tighter we make the definitions in the legislation, the less room there is for those negotiations, discussions and debates between the oversight regulator and the regulators themselves, which I would be reluctant to lose because there is a lot to be done there. I am hoping that, by setting out the way in which those debates and discussions would be conducted and the essence of what would be in them, we may provide the comfort that those organisations are looking for. It is not always a question of changing the Bill, as noble Lords know; it is about expressing precisely what we are trying to do in a way that gives comfort to those who want to see us do it properly.