Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what estimate she has made of how many people in (a) Greater London and (b) the UK are directly employed in legal services; and what estimate she has made of the number of jobs in that sector which might be relocated from the UK after the UK leaves the EU.

According to the CityUK UK Legal Services Report 2016, around 370,000 people are employed in the legal services sector. This includes 314,100 in private practice (which excludes those working in-house, in foreign firms and on a contract basis, and those not attached to an organisation). English law has had a huge impact, spreading the rule of law around the world. It is the law of choice in over a quarter of jurisdictions, and Brexit gives us even more opportunities to promote this. We will be championing our £25 billion legal services industry as a key part of post-Brexit global Britain.