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Legal Services Bill [HL]

My Lords, if the person is not a practising lawyer—they may be legally qualified but not practising—that is what I am saying. To return to the original point made by the noble Lord, within the Consumer Panel it is important that the breadth of consumer interests is represented. The question is how one best achieves that. We would argue that it is best achieved by taking people from large and small organisations, and perhaps individuals, who are consumers but not practising lawyers—they may be legally qualified, but not practising. How a business chooses to do that is up to the business itself. For example, one would ask a large business in the retail sector to consider who best would represent it. What we would not be looking for is the practising head of that business’s legal department. It might choose an individual who is legally qualified but not practising. That is all there is between us here.