Aberdeen solicitor Catriona Walker has challenged MSP Fergus Ewing's claim that the Legal Services Bill will protect Scotland's legal system, and claims that the terms of the bill open the door for the Solicitors’ Regulatory Authority of England and Wales to regulate the Scottish legal profession.

"What does Community Safety Minister Fergus Ewing mean by an “independent Scottish legal system. Independent of whom?" she asks.

"The Legal Services Bill before the Scottish Parliament gives up the independence guaranteed by the Treaty of Union (referred to in the Scotland Act) which sought to protect the independence of the Scottish legal system (in relation to private law,) by vetoing any change to the system “except for the evident utility of the subjects of Scotland”.

"The Legal Services Bill includes the specific provision that English solicitors are presumed fit to own legal service providers in Scotland. Mr Ewing’s fitness-to-own test is a mere illusion and there is word that the Solicitors’ Regulatory Authority of England and Wales has indicated an interest in applying to be a regulator in Scotland.

"There is a difference between protectionism and protection. Scots private law needs to be protected from being totally overtaken by its larger neighbour. The public interest and the consumer interest in Scotland need to be protected." 

Walker also says that it is not clear that either Westminster or English legal service providers have any understanding of the Scottish legal system, but notes that they have had "a profound influence on the generation of the Legal Services Bill, in the name of consumerism, but in the absence of evidence"