Legal Services Bill [HL]

I am clearly going to have to keep my body under control during the passage of this Bill. I should not have said that; it begs enormous numbers of comments. None the less, by nodding at noble Lords I was trying to indicate that I fully understood the points that had been raised. For me, the public interest is why you regulate. Regulation is about something that we do as a Government to support the public interest. As noble Lords have rightly pointed out, the Government were very keen, in responding to the Joint Committee, to tackle the issue appropriately. The noble Lord, Lord Neill of Bladen, referred to the letter that I sent to him and to the fact that in Clauses 3, 27 and 113 we have put in, "““have regard to … the public interest””," for the specific aspects in the Bill. That was our attempt to respond to the Joint Committee appropriately. The noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Wirral—on whom we have all heaped praise for his chairing of the Joint Committee—should just assume that I praise him each time I mention him, which will save us some time, for it is always at the back of my mind. What has changed? Nothing has changed. We felt that we had dealt with the issue appropriately in those clauses. I accept the concerns of my noble friend Lord Whitty. When the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, talked about the balance between the consumer interest and the public interest, it made me a little nervous, because I do not see it quite in that way. I accept—and I wanted to listen to this debate very carefully—that there is an issue that we have not quite got right in the Bill, and I am very keen to address it. I did not know whether we would go for the approach in Amendment No. 1 or in Amendment No. 2, so it was interesting that we had a mixture of both. Perhaps the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, found more favour in this particular debate. I worry a little that we are trying to balance something when in this instance the regulation, as my noble friend rightly says, is primarily about the relationship between the legal profession and the consumer, customer, citizen or client—whichever word noble Lords prefer—whom the profession is seeking to serve. That all takes place within the context of the public interest, whether the definition is from Wikipedia or from the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland. I am very mindful of what my noble friend Lord Whitty has said. Indeed, in discussions, organisations that are particularly concerned about consumer interests have been keen to make sure that we are mindful of what the regulation is seeking to achieve. None the less, I think that we have something that we need to address and we will endeavour to do so. For my part at this stage, what I would say is that we are very interested in this debate, on which I will reflect very carefully. The noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway, raised the question of judicial review; I know that he has an amendment later in the Bill that specifically tackles that. I had the opportunity to discuss with him earlier today the whole question of judicial review and I think that he will accept that we are absolutely confident that those who are being regulated will be able to go to judicial review where they feel that there is an issue to be resolved. But I think that we should wait for that debate to talk about the matter in greater detail, as other noble Lords may wish to add to that. So in essence we agree with what the Joint Committee was seeking to do. We believed that we had resolved it appropriately. If noble Lords believe that we have not, we will endeavour to do so, building on this debate and perhaps in discussion with those who put forward Amendments Nos. 1 and 2, but being very mindful of what my noble friends Lord Whitty and Lord Graham of Edmonton said about ensuring that we are clear about the purpose of regulation. I do not think that there is any difference between us. On that basis, I hope that noble Lords will feel able not to press their amendments, and I shall return to the subject at Report.