Britain’s £26 billion legal industry is under threat from post-Brexit restrictions to freedom of movement and exit from the single market, the country’s top lawyers have warned.
MPs on the Justice Select Committee, who are gathering evidence on the impact of leaving the EU, were told that there would be little left to “salvage” of the successful industry if lawyers were stripped of free movement and lost the right to practise in the EU because of differing regulations.
The legal services industry contributes £3.6 billion of Britain’s exports and trade. It was reported last year that it grew by 8 per cent in 2015, significantly faster than the rest of the economy.
“Without the free movement of lawyers nothing else of much importance is going to be salvaged,” Andrew Langdon, chair of the Bar Council told the committee.
“That’s absolutely fundamental: but I think it’s important to underline that it’s not necessarily whether it’s just important for lawyers.”
He said that clients’ ability to use British lawyers in European courts was important for small businesses and individuals, who would still find themselves with a need for legal representation when doing dealings on the continent.
Robert Bourns, the president of the law society, said the industry’s continued success would require continued free movement for its workers as well as continued harmonisation of rights to practice.
“If [leaving the single market] is indeed to be the position then free movement of lawyers, the right to give advice across borders, for the bar, but not only for the bar, rights of audience, all these are pretty fundamental to our continued success,” he told the MPs.
Theresa May has pledged a hard Brexit of leaving the single market and ending free movement: but the Government has proved quick to grant exceptions when challenged on specifics.
Ministers have already pledged to keep at least part of the UK’s car industry in the single market and said that the construction industry will still be able to recruit labourers from abroad as it can now.
