Bambos Charalambous
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Leaving the EU: Justice System
Bambos Charalambous Excerpts(6 years, 8 months ago)
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Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Buck. As a former solicitor, I know only too well the vital services provided by the legal profession, not only to clients in the UK but across Europe and globally. Legal services are the largest market in the EU, thanks to the strength and stability of English and Welsh law, our independent courts and judiciary and the excellence of our legal service providers.
The contribution of the legal services sector to the UK economy was worth more than £26 billion, or 1.5% of the UK’s GDP, in 2017, so any impact of Brexit on legal services would have a knock-on effect on the UK economy. The sector employs more than 380,000 people and the latest statistics suggest that the legal services sector was responsible for a net export of more than £4 billion.
At the moment, European directives mean that lawyers and law firms are able to benefit from a simple, predictable and uniform system that allows them a temporary or permanent presence in other EU member states. UK lawyers are able to service the cross-border needs of businesses and individuals from both satellite offices in the EU and London offices, and 36 out of the 50 top UK law firms have at least one office in another EU or EEA state or in Switzerland. They have a presence in 26 of those 31 countries.
As lawyers from an EU member state, UK lawyers can appear before EU courts. If we were to lose those rights, UK lawyers would not be able to advise on areas such as competition, intellectual property or trade, due to restrictions on rights of audience at certain EU institutions, such as the Court of Justice of the European Union. Those are all currently lucrative practices for UK-qualified lawyers and bring business to UK law firms. Losing such business could be economically catastrophic for firms and for the UK economy.
Without a deal, the attractiveness of UK law and lawyers for multinational business will decrease, which will lead to an increase in costs for transactions involving UK lawyers and law firms. Even though the UK will remain an open market for global lawyers, having no partnership agreement could lead to restrictive regulations against leading law firms in the UK that want to provide services in the EU27. It is possible that 30 different regimes could impose restrictions and limitations on practice rights on UK lawyers and law firms. For example, subject to any potential visa requirements, French lawyers could be providing on-site legal advice to UK businesses, but the reverse would not be true.
Unless alternative arrangements are agreed, UK lawyers would lose the right to represent their clients before EU courts prior to the UK’s exit. They would no longer be authorised to carry out that work. Clients of UK lawyers would no longer automatically benefit from client-lawyer confidentiality, until an alternative is agreed, as the CJEU does not recognise the privileged nature of communications between a lawyer who is not qualified in the EU and a client. It is essential that the Government negotiate mutual access for lawyers to practise law and base themselves in the UK and the EU, and that should include rights of audience in EU courts and legal professional privilege at the EU Commission.
We know that the Government are seeking an agreement like the comprehensive economic and trade agreement, but CETA provides voluntary, not binding, guidelines for concluding mutual recognition agreements between professional bodies. As the Law Society has stated, a CETA-style agreement
“is essentially a ‘no deal’ outcome for the legal services sector...The CETA style agreement would lead to a lack of legal certainty which would affect business confidence and have a negative wider impact on the UK economy”.
We need to make sure that the UK is a global centre for legal services and that we promote it across Europe and internationally. I hope the Minister will address my points and the questions in the Committee’s report, in her reply.