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Legal Services Bill [HL]

I am most grateful for the Minister’s reply. To some degree, it may be that the problems anticipated by the trademark and patent attorneys are specific to their profession. Nevertheless, they are a regulated body, and I know the Minister would be dismayed if, as a consequence of the operation of this new regulatory regime, all the things those attorneys fear came to pass. That would be extremely damaging to a thriving profession. The Government must be alert, either in the Bill or in the subsequent regulation, to the particular problems of this regulated group. The Minister expressed her hesitation in putting the amendment in the Bill, while accepting that the underlying concern it sough to address was a real one. Would she agree, in the context of the debate on the previous amendment, that Amendment No. 142A adds considerable force to our contention that the word ““proportionate”” needs to be in the Bill? There are many particular stipulations in this amendment, but the principle that lies behind them is the principle of proportionality. The Minister has a golden opportunity to confront at least some of the problems of the patent attorneys, while at the same time meeting the more general problem that we sought to deal with in discussing the previous amendment to place proportionality in the Bill, thereby at a stroke not only doing much to deal with the general problems but also to help this potentially beleaguered profession.