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Legal Services Bill [HL]

I declare an interest as chancellor of the University of the West of England, which provides an excellent Bar vocational course and an equally excellent practice course for solicitors. Our law faculty is rated as excellent. It is checked annually not only by the Bar Council but by the Inns of Court, which specify whether the 10 or so universities providing the Bar vocational training are good enough. I hope that the Minister will be able to assuage my concern about whether the regulator—the board—will interfere or will underpin and support the existing excellent arrangements for the Bar and solicitor training. There is a real possibility that it might interfere rather than support. To some extent it could damage what the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway, has been saying about the importance of underpinning independence in the way in which the Bar and solicitors are trained.