Speeches by Russell.

“One of the elements of the report refers to the fact that judicial appointments were not apparently liaising in any way with the Bar Standards Board. Do you feel that indicates a failure on your part?”

“Have you done a review of what complaints you had about this organisation? It bought a lot of firms quite rapidly, didn’t it? Did you have ongoing complaints about it?”

“The Bar Standards Board made decisions, such as those listed in the report, around male barristers who inappropriately touched and consistently harassed very junior female barristers—sometimes pupils—in ways that constituted public sexual assault. Those men were suspended for three months—the examples are all in the re…”

“Making bad decisions faster is not an improvement for the women who are on the receiving end of this harassment—I mean, it is a slight improvement, but it is not the wholesale change that will sort out the culture at the Bar. I understand that you cannot intervene in individual decisions—I would not expect you to—but i…”

“When does that programme deliver?”

“Do you think that that discloses any areas in which you should function differently?”

“Have you read Baroness Harman’s report, “Independent review of bullying and harassment at the Bar”?”

“Do you think that that discloses any areas in which you should function differently?”

“The report was issued in September last year. What concrete steps have you taken in your organisation to change it to reflect the report?”

“The examples described include a pupil barrister being sexually assaulted in a room full of other barristers. I do not think that anyone is under any illusions that the people at the Bar did not know whether or not that was ethical. That is not about a failure of people knowing what ethics look like. It is astonishing.”

“How is the SRA responding to allegations of mis-selling with regard to high-volume no win, no fee claims?”

“PM Law unexpectedly closed on 2 February, putting millions of pounds of client funds at risk. What risks were the SRA aware of prior to its closure?”

“SSB Law ran a portfolio funding business model which the Civil Justice Council has recommended should be regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority as a type of loan. Do you agree with that?”

“You commented that the case for a review of the reserved legal activities is growing. Which reserved legal activities do you think need to change?”

“What extent of protection do you think the public need from AI?”

“That is super. I have one last, very short point that I want to make. In my constituency, there is an ongoing problem with leaseholders whose estates have subsequently not been adopted, who do not understand the service charges they are going to be subject to on an ongoing basis and who have not understood the risks as…”

“You were established in 2007, so the SRA is a relatively recent organisation, but not that new. I got the impression from what you just said that it was probably quite innovative work for you to speak to people who had experience of using legal services. Is that a fair characterisation?”

“What are you doing about costs? To put that comment into some context, I am a solicitor, but my experience of friends and family using law firms is that they have not received transparent information up front about costs and that they have been consistently surprised by the bills that they received. As a solicitor, I f…”

“You commented that the case for a review of the reserved legal activities is growing. Which reserved legal activities do you think need to change?”

“You were established in 2007, so the SRA is a relatively recent organisation, but not that new. I got the impression from what you just said that it was probably quite innovative work for you to speak to people who had experience of using legal services. Is that a fair characterisation?”