Welcome to this sitting of the Justice Committee, which is going to deal with the matter of a pre-appointment hearing for the Chair of the Legal Services Board. The preferred candidate of the Government, of the MOJ, Monisha Shah, has kindly joined us this morning. Members of the Committee will ask Ms Shah a series of questions in a moment. Before we do so, we need to make our declarations of interest.

Good morning. I am Warinder Juss. I am the Member of Parliament for Wolverhampton West. I am a solicitor with a practising certificate, but I am not practising at the moment. I am a member of various APPGs and an executive council member of the GMB trade union.

Hi. My name is Tony Vaughan. I am a barrister with a practising certificate, an associate tenant at Doughty Street Chambers. I was appointed King’s Counsel last year. I draw attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

Good morning. I am Pam Cox, the MP for Colchester. My interests are as declared in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

I am Andy Slaughter, the MP for Hammersmith and Chiswick. I am Chair of the Committee, a non-practising barrister, a member of the GMB and Unite trade unions, and a patron of two justice-related charities, the Upper Room and the Hammersmith and Fulham Law Centre.

Good morning. My name is Tessa Munt. I am the Member of Parliament for Wells and Mendip Hills in Somerset. I am the one who is not a lawyer. Everything is in my declarations in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, but I will just say that I am vice-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on penal affairs, and a director and vice-chair of WhistleblowersUK, which is a not-for-profit organisation.

Good morning. I am Neil Shastri-Hurst. I am the Member of Parliament for Solihull West and Shirley. I am a barrister; I have a practising certificate; and I am an associate tenant at the No5 Chambers. Otherwise, it is as per my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

We have let you know who we all are, so I will begin proceedings by asking you to introduce yourself and explain your background. In the course of that, perhaps you will explain how you found out about the role and what led you to apply for it.

Thank you very much for inviting me to the hearing. It is a great honour to be considered the preferred Chair of the LSB. My background is primarily media. I worked for many years at the BBC, in its business arm, on licensing intellectual property around the world. Since then, I have pursued a non-executive career, for many years in fact, mostly in the media, arts and education, in the legal sector. You asked about my motivation to apply. I suppose what I should say is that for very many years it has been my endeavour to serve in the public interest. I have served in many roles across, as I said, media, arts and education in a non-executive capacity. I am also very interested in upholding public standards, which explains my membership of the Committee on Standards in Public Life and, more recently, of the King’s Counsel Selection Panel. I grew up in India, and my father was a very strong influence on my world view. He was in his 20s when India became independent. He studied law, but at the time did not have the means to pass the Bar. It was from him, and subsequently as a student of politics, that I came to have a very deep respect for the rule of law and for the role that it plays in upholding a democratic way of life. The LSB has a very significant role to play in the legal services sector. The sector presents many challenges, which I am sure we can discuss today. I believe that some of my experience—certainly in regulation, and in decision making and leading boards—may add value to the work of the LSB, which is why I applied for the role.

You do not have a legal background yourself—

I do not.

That is not a requirement for the post, but you do hold, I think, six chair or non-executive roles, which seems a lot. Although this is not a full-time role, it is, as you just indicated, an important and strategic role in the legal system. Do you intend to continue with all those other posts, or to give some of them up?

It is true that I have six roles, of which three are voluntary roles on charities. I have nearly 20 years’ experience of managing a portfolio of roles in a non-executive capacity and, if I may say so, a strong track record of working with complex organisations in a range of sectors. I have thought very carefully about the time commitment needed for this role in the context of my other roles, which currently take up between two and a half and three days a week on average. This role was published as 70 days per year, and my experience is that time commitment can vary significantly, particularly during periods of significant organisational activity and certainly in the early months of a chair’s tenure. I have had conversations with the incumbent interim Chair of the LSB and the CEO about workflow patterns, and schedules of board meetings and stakeholder events. I have also, since learning that I am a preferred candidate, had conversations with the other organisations on which I serve about how I will balance the roles. I will step off one of my roles—I serve as a trustee of the Art Fund—at the end of June. I also finish my terms on the King’s Counsel Selection Panel and as chair of Caterham school at the end of next year, so I feel confident that I can commit the time needed to fulfil this role if I were appointed.

In relation to the King’s Counsel appointment process, that has a particular peak of work when interviews are taking place. We will come on to talk about the LSB specifically in a moment, but that can be a contentious, busy and complex role. Have you thought about how you will manage that with other roles such as the King’s Counsel appointment process, which has a very busy time every autumn in terms of interviews and appointments?

Thank you for the question. It is a busy time of interviews, but each panel member is asked for about eight days that they have to work in that time; there is a whole panel that does interviews, it is not just me as chair. We have the flexibility of offering eight days within that three-week period when we are available and can devote the time, so I think that I can manage my responsibilities during the autumn.

You declared that you have not undertaken any relevant political activity in the last five years. Can you confirm that that is the case, and is there anything else you want to tell us about any previous political activities—or do you have any plans to engage in any in future?

I have not undertaken any political activity in the last five years, or at any time apart from, as I said, in the general election in 2015 when I canvassed for and attended one hustings for an artist friend, who was standing as an independent; it was no surprise to anyone, least of all him, that he lost. I have no future plans to engage in any partisan political activity while serving as Chair of the LSB, as I believe that it would be incompatible with the independence that the role requires.

We have mentioned your role as chair of the King’s Counsel Selection Panel. You said that you do not see a conflict of interest between that position and your role as Chair of the Legal Services Board. Could you expand a bit more on that? For example, how would you feel about advocating fundamental reform of the Bar and criticising the approach of the Bar Council? Would you be comfortable doing that in your role as Chair of the Legal Services Board?

There are two different questions there.

If you could say more about potential conflicts of interest, and whether you see there being any potential for conflict.

Certainly; thank you for the question. If I may summarise, in terms of the conflict, the key points of difference between the King's Counsel Appointments role and this one. First, on the King's Counsel Selection Panel, I am the chair of the selection panel, not the chair of the KCA—King's Counsel Appointments—or of their board. The King's Counsel Selection Panel has a role to play: to assess individual applications, which is going to the work that we do. The difference between that and the LSB is that the LSB does not review or intervene in individual cases, as you are aware. That is a key point of difference between the two roles. The selection panel works to a process and a framework that has been set by the professions. It does not have the remit to change any of that. We rely extensively on evidence offered to us by assessors, and there is absolutely no scope for any external information to be brought into that when we assess applications. The final thing to note that might be helpful is that decisions are made by the panel operating as a group, not by individual members of the panel. In terms of conflict management, the KCA has very clear, published processes and protocols in place for dealing with issues of individuals’ complaints, character and also conflict. The way that it works is that each panel member, including the chair of the selection panel, would recuse themselves should they become aware of any real or perceived conflict in the context of any particular application or applicant. What is less well known is that each applicant can request that a panel member be recused from consideration of their application for any reason. That is anonymously handled by the secretariat, which is led by a CEO. That is clear in terms of the conflict management process. On that basis, I would certainly be perfectly comfortable, in my role as the Chair of the LSB, to engage with stakeholders, including the Bar Council.

Last November, the King’s Counsel Complaints Committee recommended that various changes be made to certain aspects of the selection competitions in the future. Can you tell us more about what progress has been made in implementing any changes?

I believe all the changes have been implemented by the secretariat at the KCA.

Is there any learning that can be applied from that to your new role as the Chair of the Legal Services Board, were you to be in that position? Is there any learning experience from the changes that took place with the King’s Counsel Complaints Committee?

I have a couple of things to say on that. The complaints committee rightly said it was important that applicants knew how long it would take for the KCA to respond to the complainant, even if there would be delays in the system, which may have been reasonable. I believe that the KCA has now put in place a clear protocol where complaints will be dealt with at specific times. I believe it is 15 days, or two working weeks, within which they will come back to the complainant. The second point I want to make is about the recusal process. The recusal process is very robust in the King’s Counsel appointments system. The way complaints are handled is extremely proper, if I may say so. The selection panel do not know who the complainant is. The complaints are anonymised because there is the issue that if a complainant wishes to reapply in a future year, the panel is so small that its members should not be in any way prejudiced towards the applicant. That is how the process works. In the course of the application, although the application had not been decided, I took the view that since I now knew the identity of the complainant, I should recuse myself from any future application. That was why it was mentioned that I have recused myself voluntarily and in the first instance, and that was commended by the complaints committee.

I think what is possibly concerning us is that although the LSB and the King’s Counsel appointments process are obviously different—they are fish and fowl—they are nevertheless both in the legal field and can be sensitive or contentious in that way. There is the potential for conflicts to arise there. I know you said that you are not going to pursue your role in the King’s Counsel appointments process from the end of next year, but have you considered whether it would be appropriate to stand down from that role now?

We are in the middle of a competition now; the competition is open. I have made a commitment to serving until the end of next year. I believe that the process of management of conflict is extremely clear and I have confidence in it. I remind the Committee that on the panel we have serving barristers and serving solicitors who also need to manage their day-to-day conflicts, so the process is very robust. I assure the Committee that if I thought that the conflict was unmanageable, or detrimental to either of the organisations, I would certainly step down.

Will you explain the functions of the Legal Services Board—both those it performs and the responsibilities that the Chair has?

The Legal Services Board exists to ensure that public interest—the interest of the consumers—is at the heart of the legal system in England and Wales. It does that by regulating the regulators in the legal sector, such as the Solicitors Regulation Authority and the Bar Standards Board. It is financially and politically independent of Government. It was created by the Legal Services Act 2007 and it does not regulate lawyers directly. What it does do, among its other responsibilities, is make sure that the regulators act in a way that delivers the nine regulatory objectives that the Act sets out. Its focus is really to improve access to justice, make it easier for ordinary people and businesses to get the help that they need, protect people who use legal services, ensure that legal services are of a high standard and maintain trust in the profession. Ultimately, it is to ensure that the legal sector, as a whole, works in the public interest. My role as Chair of the LSB, and certainly my endeavour—were I to be appointed—would essentially be to ensure that the regulatory objectives are being met. I am aware of the current priorities of the LSB—most importantly, the enforcement action it has taken, and the work around that against the SRA and the BSB. I am also aware that a public bodies review is under way. As Chair of the board, it would be a priority for me, along with the board, to ensure that we take the recommendations of the review forward. Initially, while we do that, my understanding of a regulatory Chair role, and certainly my experience of regulation, is that it is very important for the Chair to understand the tensions and the conflict within the system. Therefore, in the initial period at least, I would like to undertake a period of discovery—a listening exercise—to really understand the issues and challenges faced by the regulated entities, by the authorised regulators and by the consumers, so that I could come to my own evidence base and understanding about the future direction of the LSB.

Do you have some idea of the specific challenges faced by the LSB right now?

Yes. There are several challenges faced by the LSB, and certainly challenges in the landscape in which the LSB functions. Without going into all of them, I will point out just a few. First, there are the pressing issues in the wider legal sector—I have read the LSB’s own “State of Legal Services 2025” report—regarding unmet legal need, court backlogs and legal aid. I would say that those are ultimately matters of public funding and Government policy, not regulation alone, but the LSB’s own report is very candid that progress on fairer outcomes has at best stalled and, in some areas, regressed. A further challenge worth noting is the question of the Legal Services Act itself. The Justice Committee concluded in 2024 that it does not appear to provide a stable, long-term framework, and there is perhaps a growing case for re-examination. Again, that is properly a matter for Government and Parliament, but there is no doubt that the LSB has a role in contributing to that discussion. The LSB-specific challenge is that it operates at one step removed from direct delivery—it oversees regulators, not the profession itself—which means that influence must be exercised really through persuasion, evidence and the use of regulatory levers. The most challenging part of my job, perhaps, will be to make sure that that oversight role really counts in practice.

I do not want to sound rude, but may I ask what skills and experiences you have that enable you to execute those functions?

In terms of skills and challenges, having looked through the job description and the challenges of the LSB, I can say that from my career and experience—I will highlight just a few things, but am very happy to take further questions—I have an understanding of the role of regulation and some regulatory experience, having served on the board of the Office for Students, which is the regulator for higher education in England, and on the Ofcom content board, which is the statutory committee of the main Ofcom board and which has delegated and advisory responsibilities to set and enforce quality and standards in television and radio. Currently, I serve on the Advertising Standards Authority. As we have talked about, I have served on the King’s Counsel Selection Panel since 2018, when I was appointed as a lay member, and I have been its chair for four years. In that context, I have an understanding of the landscape of the legal services sector within which the LSB operates. I have a track record of delivery on significant policy and regulatory issues at board level. At the Office for Students, one of the things the board did—we were the founding board—was to publish the regulatory and governance framework. We registered providers and we implemented what at the time was quite a radical new approach to fair access and improved outcomes for students from disadvantaged backgrounds. I have experience of working with stakeholders across a wide range of sectors. I have had the opportunity to build effective relationships with Ministers and senior Government officials. Consumer work is certainly something that I have done. Finally, I would say that I have an appreciation of the role of data and technology in delivering change. At the Advertising Standards Authority, data, technology and AI are quite central to its function as a preventive and proactive regulator. It is interesting to consider the statistics: in 2024, the ASA amended or withdrew nearly 34,000 ads, and 94% of those came as a result of its proactive work, which used AI-enabled active ad monitoring systems.

Are there any other skills, experience or knowledge that you bring? As you mentioned, you were a media professional, effectively, and you had an interest in the creative industries and in education. Is there anything there that you think will add to your ability to function as Chair of this organisation?

I hope so. The media aspect is very interesting. The media plays an incredibly important role in holding public bodies to account, and I strongly support that. Across very many of my roles, I have certainly had to engage with the media in different ways, including with online and digital media. It has been an important part of my jobs. With regard to education, there is a place for information, advice and guidance in the role that a regulator plays, and a value for the analysis and the research that regulators can do in their capacity of overseeing a sector, which is incredibly important in strengthening the professions and the businesses, but also in terms of consumer information. I hope that some of my experience around that will be helpful in this role.

You may have touched on some of this in your earlier answers, but in 2023 the Justice Committee called for a review of the LSB following criticisms made by the Bar Council, and the Government have recently launched a review on that basis. How will that affect the way the LSB approaches its work?

Yes, I am aware of what you have mentioned—the data points, including the criticisms, the submissions and certainly the public bodies review. I believe that the public bodies review comes at a good time for the LSB. There have been some significant regulatory failures, which arguably have reduced consumer and public trust in the legal services system. It has pointed to some challenges, perhaps, and possibly new ways of working, in terms of how the LSB undertakes its regulatory oversight role. I would welcome the recommendations of the public bodies review, in terms of the work that they are currently doing that I am aware of. It would be a priority for the board and for me as Chair, were I to be appointed, to consider very carefully the recommendations of the public bodies review, particularly when considering the future business strategies and three-year plans that the LSB is currently in the process of developing.

Thank you. You have set out the vast experience that you have of engaging with public bodies. Have you ever led an organisation that is subject to public criticism and political scrutiny in quite this way?

I am trying to consider. Public scrutiny certainly has been a feature of many of my roles. I may not have directly led it, but even when I was a trustee of Tate, for example, there was public scrutiny. Where any organisation is publicly funded, it is right for it to be scrutinised. It is very much a feature of all those organisations to be mindful of their purpose and function and of public money. I have not been a chair of an organisation—I am trying to remember—where there has been a public bodies review. When I was on the Committee on Standards in Public Life, they had already had the review before I joined. I have been invited to be on the challenge group for two triennial reviews by Government Departments of public bodies. One was for the British Council and the other was for the British Film Institute. There were two different Departments conducting the triennial reviews, and I was the independent member of the challenge group, so I do have an understanding of the process and the purpose, and certainly also of the quantity of work that goes into this, and I am aware of the sensitivities around it.

Richard Orpin was appointed as chief executive of the Legal Services Board in January, having served as its interim chief executive and director of regulation and policy since 2023. How do you anticipate dividing the responsibilities between yourself and Richard Orpin?

I am aware that he was recently appointed. He has worked there for three years and been interim CEO twice, I believe. My role as Chair would be to make sure that we have a shared and a trusted understanding of what the LSB’s future direction is and should be, along with the board. Richard is the CEO of the organisation, and he would be leading the operational aspects of it; it would be up to me and the board to offer critical and friendly challenge as necessary, in order to ensure that the LSB fulfils its regulatory objectives.

The LSB has a number of responsibilities, which include oversight of the regulators, taking enforcement action and promoting the regulatory objectives, but I believe it has fewer than 50 staff. Are you confident that the organisation can deal with its competing priorities with that number of staff?

I am not in post, and I am not really able to speak to the skills, capability and capacity with any expertise, but I can offer my thoughts. I can see that it is a small organisation with around 45 people, and I recognise that the sector faces considerable challenges in which regulation has a role to play. I understand how the LSB oversees multiple regulators of varying size and resources. As you say, it has a vast job to do in tracking performance and responding to emerging issues. It feels to me as if the high quality of its work, particularly in the research and output, which is impressive from a small organisation, suggests that there are some highly capable, hard-working people who work there, with a very strong analytical culture. But if there were a need to review capability, particularly following the public bodies review and given the pace of market change, the use of AI and technology, horizon scanning, measurement, evaluation and different skills, it would be entirely reasonable to review whether it had the skills and capacity. Ultimately, it is important that regulation be appropriately resourced to protect the public, in my view, and to maintain standards. Where there is evidence of a need to invest, I would not hesitate to make the case.

Can you explain the approach that you believe the Legal Services Board takes to assessing the performance of regulators? Have you some insight into that?

Well—

As an addendum to that, it has been criticised for having a light touch, hasn’t it? I just wonder what your comments on that might be.

As I say, I have not been appointed and am not a board member, so I am not able to answer that definitively. However, I can say that it uses the regulatory performance framework as its primary oversight tool. That does a bunch of things: it does performance standards, it looks at evidence submissions from regulators and, of course, it is a very important way of providing transparency and accountability. I was struck by the fact that its recent performance assessment had only one frontline regulator that achieved an all-green status. You can read that in many ways; it is not great news, but it shows that some of its assessment tools are working. The question for me is, how can assessment of performance really lead to improvements in performance? The recent regulatory failures make that question quite urgent. I am aware that the LSB is considering how its approach could be more proportionate, risk-based and evidence-based in future. There is always a trade-off between light-touch regulation and burdening regulators that are doing well with unnecessary costs of compliance. That has to be an area where regulators are alert and mindful. To my mind, the key questions in any performance assessment or tool that you use would be, “Can future failures be prevented? Are systemic risks being managed appropriately? Are consumers better protected? Are the statutory objectives being met?” Ultimately, those have to be the questions for any regulator. It is the LSB’s duty to ensure that regulators operate in the public interest and that they uphold those regulatory objectives.

Bearing in mind that there has been criticism of the light-touch approach to assessment—the Bar Standards Board and the Solicitors Regulation Authority were found to have “failed to demonstrate that they met the required standards in important areas”—did you raise those questions during your interviews? In your situation, I think I might have asked the people interviewing me how they thought we could make that leap. I understand your desire to ensure that things do not fail in future; I just wonder whether you raised that with those who interviewed you for the post.

Well, the LSB did not interview me for the post. I was interviewed by the Ministry of Justice—a representative from the Department.

They would have an idea.

Yes. I have to say that I did not directly ask them the question about the criticisms around the LSB. However, I am aware of the criticisms that have been made around light-touch regulation, and I understand that the LSB has considered whether it needs to change its approach and be a much more proactive regulator. It is certainly also the case that the way consumers are using technology and the way law firms and legal services have to work with technology require a kind of supervision that has to be ongoing and intelligence-led, rather than simply periodic and reactive. I believe that that is something that the LSB is considering in its future approach.

Thank you. Just for the record, I am surprised that no one from the Legal Services Board was involved in the interview process.

My colleague asked you about whether you have any experience of leading an organisation that might have been subjected to public criticism or political scrutiny. You were previously chair of the Arts and Humanities Research Council. I understand that it has recently faced some criticism of how it carried out certain prioritisations, or that it was not giving priority to independent research. Were you involved in any of that, when those criticisms were made?

I was not. The way that the council operates is that we were counsel to the council, as it were—we were counsel to the Arts and Humanities Research Council. We are an advisory board that is there to provide advice to the exec chair of the AHRC, and I was the senior independent member of the advisory council. I did not have any involvement in the issue that you mentioned.

Good morning. In March, the LSB issued a formal censure to the SRA for its failure to protect consumers affected by the collapse of SSB Group Ltd. What are your assessments of the effectiveness of the LSB’s enforcement functions?

The enforcement action demonstrates that the LSB is prepared to use its enforcement powers. When enforcement action is necessary, as I have said before, my view is that the harm has already occurred. To me, that demonstrates a need for greater market surveyance from both the frontline regulators and the LSB. I think there are some very clear lessons to be learned from the experience of those two events. Consumer detriment is incredibly significant when large law firms fail, and that should never be underestimated. In the current climate, I think that the authorisation processes possibly need to be much more risk-sensitive, especially for growing firms with complex ownership and funding structures. And as I have said before—I believe the LSB is considering this—supervision needs to be ongoing and intelligence-led, not periodic and reactive. Firm growth, trajectories and client money flows should trigger enhanced scrutiny.

Forgive me, but you sounded a little hesitant in that answer. Is it your view that the LSB’s enforcement functions are not adequate?

Certainly not. I have no basis to believe that they are not adequate.

You touched on other firms that have been involved, such as Axiom Ince. There has been criticism of the pace with which the LSB has reacted to those, and it has been seen as slow to react in both the SSB and Axiom Ince cases. Are there any specific lessons you feel can be learned from those cases that can be applied in similar situations?

The accusations about pace seem to be absolutely legitimate. It is true that, even from a reading of some of the reports from the Legal Services Consumer Panel, there were signs that were emerging issues, and perhaps there were opportunities for intervention. I was not part of the board, and I am not part of the board now, so I do not know or presume to understand what they knew and what they were dealing with. However, I think that there are certainly lessons to be learned on the pace of intervention, complaints handling and the use of complaints to understand the broader trends in the system as intelligence for potential intervention.

Do you have any specific examples of what those lessons are?

In terms of the interventions?

Yes.

As I said, interventions are possible around governance, financial governance and financial scrutiny, if there are concerns about very quick growth trajectories with complex ownerships and not enough insight into how clients’ money flows are happening, and certainly around complex ownership and funding structures. It is something that a regulator needs to understand fully and understand the risks around on an ongoing basis.

Thank you for your answers so far, Ms Shah. Under the Legal Services Act 2007, one regulatory objective that the LSB has to oversee is encouraging an independent and diverse legal profession. I know that the LSB is currently consulting on obligations to improve diversity in the professions. One proposal is to require regulators to drive cultural change through conduct frameworks. What are your views about that proposal? I know that they are still being consulted on. In your answer, could you draw on your experiences, possibly at the KCA or elsewhere, to demonstrate how you are the right person to drive cultural change, which I think we need to improve diversity in the professions?

Thank you for the question. As you say, the proposal is still under way and is being consulted on now. I have as much information from the public domain as you do—I suspect less. Diversity is incredibly important. As you might imagine, it is very important to me personally. My view is that sometimes, conversations about diversity—I am not now speaking about the LSB’s consultation, but in general—often miss the point. It is not about counting different kinds of people; it is more directly linked to whether consumers feel that they are respected, understood and, certainly in the legal context, whether they can trust the advice that they receive. A recent Legal Services Consumer Panel report said that the element of trust on the part of the consumer was dependent on three things. The first was whether the legal service provider was regulated, the second was whether they were specialists, and the third was whether they could speak to the consumer in a language that was understood. We know from data in the legal sector that ethnic minority legal service consumers are less likely to express trust in legal providers, achieve positive outcomes or receive a good service. When you add language, cultural barriers and a lack of empathy, that problem is much worse. A diverse and inclusive legal profession is fundamental to securing public trust. It is incredibly important for a well-functioning legal services market. The ambition, therefore, to create a diverse, equal and inclusive legal profession is right.

In terms of how we do it, the consultation is trying to talk about particular duties around driving cultural change. The Bar Council has expressed views about an expansionist agenda on the part of the LSB, and the diversity aspect is one element of that. I do not know what your comments were about that particular suggestion, in the context of what the LSB is considering seeking to do.

Yes, I am aware of that. Again, I am not in post, so it is something that I would like to consider in full when I see the full evidence base, if I am appointed. There is a case to be made for whether the oversight regulator should focus on a small number of key objectives and work in partnership with other organisations where they are better placed to deliver. It certainly may be the case that the frontline and approved regulators are better placed to deliver a change in culture. I am aware of the Bar Standards Board and Bar Council’s work on pathways to progress, and that they, along with the Law Society, are doing a lot of work on this very important subject. That would be my response.

That is very helpful. Lastly and relatedly, in your time as chair of the KCA, there have been improvements in diversity, particularly for women applicants, but the position of black barristers and solicitors remains a concern. Do you have any comments on the record—not yours as such—of the KCA under your chairship when it comes to diversity, and what that might say about the work you may do going forward?

Specifically with regard to the KCA, we care very deeply about diversity at the KC Selection Panel. Our remit at the selection panel is incredibly limited: we are required to consider applications made to us and apply the competency framework as it is given. The final thing to say on that is that we do not operate quotas. We are very focused on, and required to ensure, that we act in the public interest and carry out our duties under the competency framework to the highest standards. That said, what we have done—and what I have done in my tenure as chair, which did not happen before—is conduct a strong and consistent outreach programme. The KC Selection Panel, supported by the KCA secretariat and chief executive, has embarked on an extensive outreach programme, meeting and speaking to stakeholders. Not only have we conducted webinars, meetings and conferences with specific communities and networks within the Bar, including women’s networks, women at the Bar and minority communities, but we have also approached specialist Bars where we receive fewer applications. We have conducted webinars for solicitors and, in fact, webinars for those four or five years off, who are thinking or starting to think about making an application. The other thing to say is that we are quite aware of the landscape within which these functions operate. We have spoken with heads of chambers, clerks, judges and assessors—we have never had an engagement process of the kind we have undertaken in the last four years. We have reached about 1,000 people, and there are now videos and recordings of these webinars on the website. We undertake quite a lot of training for ourselves as a selection panel, to ensure that we understand the issues and have a conscious and deliberate focus on being alert to the issues of bias and prejudice, although you can never be entirely free of them. I hope that answers your question to some degree.

That is very helpful.

That brings us to the end of the formal questioning. Can I just check one thing before we close? You will know this anyway, but it is evident from the questioning today that this is a difficult time for the LSB. It is itself under review; it is having to be quite critical of other regulatory bodies, and it is being criticised itself by the professional bodies. I will just give you a chance to say once again whether at this particular time, when it seems to be quite an intensive responsibility, you think you have the time and the abilities to go forward with the job.

I am confident that I have the time to do this role. I do believe that I am able, and will be able, to add value to the work of the LSB. I do appreciate that it is a difficult time, particularly in this instance, but I feel very encouraged that there is a new CEO in place and there is a direction forward. As I said, I think the public bodies review comes at a good time for us to consider together what the future focus of the LSB should be.

Thank you very much. We are going to have a discussion now. If you want to, you can wait, and if we can tell you anything now, we will. If not, we will contact you later.

I will wait.

Thank you so much for attending, Ms Shah.

Thank you very much for your time.