Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Keen of Elie on 28 March (HL6178), given that litigation costs are a minor proportion of legal fees, what plans they have, if any, to begin collecting data on the uniformity of hourly rates charged throughout the legal profession.

The Government has no plans to collect data on the uniformity of hourly rates charged throughout the legal profession, or to ask the Competition and Markets Authority to suggest to law firms that they should publish their hourly rates online.

The legal profession in England and Wales is independent of Government and the Legal Services Board is the oversight regulator. The regulatory bodies are taking forward measures to achieve greater pricing transparency in the sector. The Legal Services Board is monitoring progress on this.