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Legal Services Bill [HL]

My Lords, I am prompted to intervene briefly because of the intervention made by the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, who suggested that there is an alternative course of action. One of his propositions was that we might, if this proved in practice to be damaging, seek to reverse it by an Act of Parliament. I am bound to say that that would be enormously difficult. If Part 5 goes forward, it will create property rights. It seems to me that, under the provisions of the Human Rights Act, we will find it extraordinarily difficult to embark on a dismantling of this scheme. It is improbablethat we could embark on such a course with commensurate ease. The very difficulty of reversing after we have legislated makes it so much more important that we take our time now and exhaust every possible avenue of inquiry into the potential impact of what is being done. In the light of the extraordinarily wide range of views that have been expressed on this subject right across your Lordships’ House, not once but on a number of occasions, I hope that even at this late hour the Government will stand back from their too certain assertions as to what the consequences will be and recognise that further independent advice would be entirely appropriate.