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Legal Services Bill [HL]

I am grateful to noble Lords for raising those points. I have discussed the matter with the Law Society and the Bar Council, which understandably are concerned with what I think I described as dotting the ““i””s and crossing the ““t””s on everything. Let me say something about our approach. It is completely reasonable for us to continue discussions to ensure that this is worked out in a proportionate way. We have already provided that certain aspects will be exempt, but the board will determine what those should be. That will ensure we do not delve into the kind of alterations where, quite reasonably, someone might say, ““Well, those alterations obviously ought to be exempt because they will have no impact at all””. That is completely satisfactory and we are engaged in discussions with the Law Society, in particular, on that. It is also right to say that the next stage is when proposals are put forward. If the alterations are clear cut, that will be it and the end of the line. The board will say, ““Thank you very much for telling us about them. Go ahead, get on with it, and go and do it””. However, there will be a smaller group of alterations where the board might say, ““We would like more information about what precisely you are doing””. There are a number of aspects to this. In this amendment, Members of the Committee have sought to turn that on its head and say, ““Well, everything is exempt unless you tell us it is not””. I have thought about this a lot and the difficulty I can see is that the onus would be very much on the board to find out what all the different bodies are doing. On the ability of the board to be able to do that, there are—