Mr. Ian Talbot:

This is a topic we often discuss. In most of Europe the chamber network is public. We call this network the public sector chambers. Many peripheral countries, such as the UK, if it is a peripheral country, the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark and so on, tend to be private law. The history behind this is that wherever Napoleon went, he set them up as public organisations. The issue for many public sector chambers is that their lobbying activities tend to be constrained because they depend on public funding. The independence we have because we do not depend on public funding is very important to most of our chambers. Our ability to lobby independently is very important.