Part of 2. Questions to the Counsel General and Minister for the Constitution – in the Senedd at 2:27 pm on 4 May 2022.
Thank you for the supplementary question, and of course this is a question that was also raised in my monthly discussion with the Law Council of Wales, who, you may know, have set up a legal education and training working group, which I think will be very important to this. I think we've taken the first steps, and I think we do need to go further, so we are working with key stakeholders in the legal sector, including the Law Society, the Solicitors Regulation Authority—who I met with very recently—and with the bar, to support the development and sustainability of the sector. And of course, the role of the Law Council of Wales in this, I think, will be extremely important.
We do, of course, want to encourage and support increasing diversity in the legal profession, and increasing access from those who wouldn't normally have access to qualification within the legal profession as solicitors. So, the issue of apprenticeships at that level is important. It is something that—. There is research that is being carried out, and the work and discussions are ongoing. Of course, what we want to do is to ensure that, if we go down this road, the objectives will actually be delivered and that what we're not just doing is replacing funding that already exists within the legal profession to support those particular qualifications, but actually it goes to not only encouraging the diversity I mentioned but also, I believe, in terms of supporting those firms, I think, in, for example, our Valleys areas, in rural areas, that are under greater economic pressure, where this support will be something that encourages people to go into the legal profession and to work in those communities and to contribute to the increased access to justice.