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Legal Services Bill [HL]

Perhaps I may be forgiven for speaking again. There was something of an air of unreality about some of the statements made by noble Lords and, with respect, by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, who seemed to imagine that the Legal Services Board—this new body with a lay chairman and a lay majority, but with lawyers on it as well—would not consult with and take note of what had been said to it on specific matters, or more general matters, by the Bar Council and the Law Society and, for that matter, in relation to these fields of special interest, by the professional bodies representing patent agents and trade marks. The Government are justified in making particular reference in the Bill to a Consumer Panel. The consumers of legal services presently do not have an organised, identifiable, discrete body, which they would have if the Consumer Panel were set up under the Bill. The legal profession does not need that. Certainly, the Legal Services Board would be crazy if it did not consult, listen to and take note of—though not necessarily agree with—everything that was said by the professional bodies representing lawyers of all kinds.