Brendan Ryan (Labour)

It seems that self-regulating professions regulate themselves in the interests of the profession not of the consumer. I am a member of the engineering profession, which is nominally self-regulating. It has unfortunately to live in a much more competitive market-based model of activity than the other professions I mentioned and because of that it has failed miserably in any attempts — of which there have been a few — to create a sort of closed shop. It has always failed to do so. A similar experience would be very good for the medical and legal professions. We could have a useful debate on that.