The government has insisted that legal services will form part of future trade talks with India amid criticism that the sector was sidelined from the latest negotiated deal.

Last year’s UK-India free trade agreement made no mention of legal services, allowing India to continue to restrict UK lawyers’ practising rights. The controls have been a subject of discussion for decades, with no resolution apparently in sight.

The free trade agreement was laid before parliament last month and debated in the Lords this week. Lord Hunt of Wirral (David Hunt), a Conservative minister in the 1990s and a practising solicitor, said the exclusion of legal services was one of the most ‘serious and damaging failures’ in the agreement.