Clause 1
Legal Services Bill [Lords]
10:45 am
Jonathan Djanogly (Shadow Solicitor General (Also Shadow Minister for Trade and Industry), Law Officers (Assist the Home Affairs Team); Huntingdon, Conservative)
I beg to move amendment No. 217, in clause 1, page 1, line 10, after ‘(e)’ insert ‘subject to objectives (a) to (d),’.
I declare my interest as a solicitor and member of the Law Society. Before I start, may I mirror the comments of the hon. Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey about the new amendment notes? We, too, believe that those are a good idea and innovation and we are grateful to the Clerks for their guidance on how they should be put into practice.
In welcoming my hon. Friends and other hon. Members to the Committee, I would like to make a few brief remarks at the start, because some context is justified, considering how many reports, conducted by so many people, have preceded this Committee. The original Office of Fair Trading report was followed by the visionary Clementi report, then by a White Paper, an excellent report from the Joint Committee on the Draft Legal Services Bill, on which my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate served, and a thorough review in the other place, which in many ways moved the Bill back to the original Clementi vision, to the satisfaction of my hon. Friends and myself. We now have a rather long-debated Bill.