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Legal Services Bill [HL]

I am extremely grateful to the noble Lord for dealing so succinctly with this huge group of amendments, and for the way in which he was able to read out all the numbers. I am sure that I could not emulate him. I shall again resist the temptation to go through each amendment. Schedule 16 already extends the Law Society’s powers for the purpose that the noble Lord has indicated, and these further amendments build on that. The most specific changes are to ensure that there are no potential gaps in the Law Society’s powers to regulate different types of practice, including legal disciplinary practices, according to risk-based principles. In particular, the Law Society is seeking powers to ensure that all types of entity through which solicitors practise, including sole practitioner firms and partnerships, must be regulated as practices and not just through the individual lawyers within them. Although many of the outcomes of the amendments appear justifiable, I can see that some of the proposed changes are quite complex. We will have to look at them and subject them to detailed analysis. The Government do not object to the principle of the amendments. However, I will need to take them away and consider them carefully, particularly if there are complicating factors as we work through them. On that basis, I trust that the noble Lord will be happy to withdraw the amendment.