Question to the Attorney General:

To ask the Attorney General, what recent assessment she has made of the trends in the number of people called to the bar in England and Wales over the last five years.

The legal profession in England and Wales is independent of Government and is regulated by approved regulators, for which the Legal Services Board (LSB) has oversight responsibility. The approved regulators and LSB are independent of Government. Data on the trends of the number of people called to the bar in England and Wales, broken down by gender, ethnicity and age, provided by the Bar Standards Board can be found here. The statistics show that over the past 5 years the number of females being called to the bar is greater than the number of males. They also show that over the last three years the number of those called to the bar from an ethnic minority background is greater than those from a white background. This is testament to the huge amount of work to improve diversity of those practicing at the bar.