---

Legal Services Bill [HL]

I do not want to detain the noble Lord, but the issue is the same whether it is a major company coming into partnership with a legal firm or an individual. Neither is directly providing legal services to the clients nor involved in doing so. The issue is that if we have that conjunction of different people, the influence that they bring to bear on the provision of legal services cannot be discounted. If it is an individual, or two or three individuals with specific roles within the legal firm, it can be argued that that is a much lower risk and much less of an issue than if it were a major company coming in with huge resources and so on, but I cannot accept the idea that they have no influence. All I was saying was that it is the same proposition; but the degree is very different and I completely accept that. I do not accept that one can simply say that it does not have any influence and it would not affect the way that the legal services were provided and therefore we can ignore it.