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Lobbying (Whitehall)

I think that Sir Philip Mawer will look at this. I am not convinced that there is a legal obstruction to such firms signing up and joining. It seems to me that with the Law Society, for example, it is the code of conduct that says that. I think that we need to consider this further. We are in dialogue with the Law Society to consider the issue, and we must keep those channels of communication open. I shall come on to this point in more detail, but I would want to see a wide spread of people signing up to the council. What I can tell my hon. Friend the Member for Pendle, which may be helpful, is that Sir Philip has accepted the position only because he believes that there is a genuine will in the lobbying industry to ensure that a new and more effective system of regulation is created. He has asked for all those involved in the implementation process to agree by Easter the arrangements to implement the new system.