Legal advice privilege new Supreme Court Decision

I don’t know if colleagues have seen the recent decision of the Supreme Court [2013] UKSC 1
On appeal from: [2010] EWCA Civ 1094 R (on the application of Prudential plc and another)
(Appellants) v Special Commissioner of Income Tax and another (Respondents) but it is now clear that we (unless we are members of the Legal profession) do not Legal advice privilege and any communication between us and clients is not covered by the privilege -

any comments?

I haven’t seen this particular decision but this issue has been booted around the courts a few times and has always seemed non controversial to me.  Lay advisers do not have rights of audience before the courts and are not officers of the court.  Hence, they are not enmeshed in the workings of the court to an extent whereby lack of privelige between them and their clients might compromise a person’s right to a fair trial in a way that that lack of privelige between solicitors and barristers and their clients might.

I have always understood that eg CAB advisers could be compelled to reveal information disclosed to them by a client by an order of the court, and be imprisoned for contempt of court if they fail to comply. And I first trained in CAB in 1978.

here’s a link to R (on the application of Prudential plc and another) (Appellants) v Special Commissioner of Income Tax and another (Respondents) -

http://www.supremecourt.gov.uk/decided-cases/docs/UKSC_2010_0215_Judgment.pdf