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Legal Services Bill [Lords]

That is generous of the Minister. We must guard jealously those qualities that make our legal services renowned for their excellence and independence at home and abroad, but we must press on with necessary reforms to meet the genuine concerns of consumers, to protect the public interest and to enable lawyers to compete and to innovate in changing times. Holding the ring between those interests, which will sometimes coincide and at other times conflict, is the statutory objective in the Bill. Those eight values set out, at the start of the Bill, what will be guaranteed for the continuation of high standards in the provision of legal services. They should be our route map and our ringing declaration of what we expect the Bill to produce in terms of the future quality of legal services. Like others before me, I support the Bill.