Legal Services Bill [HL]

That was speedier than I thought. I understand entirely what the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, is getting at. We do not want to be unduly restrictive by putting in the Bill a duty on the regulatory bodies to consider one objective subject to another. In any case, it may sometimes not be relevant. Of course, there are other areas of concern, where other groups, individuals or Members of your Lordships’ House or another place might consider that the ranking should be different and that there should be a paramountcy of one objective above another, or that some are stronger than others. We were keen to ensure that the regulator was able to look at the objectives in the round and weight them as it saw fit. The Joint Committee recommended that the Explanatory Notes should make it explicit that the objectives were not listed in order of importance. We agreed with that, and the Explanatory Notes reflect it. The way we have done this reflects David Clementi’s recommendation that the board, the Office for Legal Complaints and the regulators would be best placed to determine which objectives and principles were the most important in a particular instance. That is the right way to approach this. As the noble Lord said, the promotion of competition is an important objective and should be considered appropriately. However, those looking at what is happening in the regulatory framework should weight the objectives as they see fit. I understand what the noble Lord seeks to do. Clearly, there will be circumstances where different objectives need to be looked at in a different way, with some coming into play and some not. That is the regulator’s role. It is not for us to try to rank them in the Bill. On the Office of Fair Trading, I looked at what we did in the Compensation Act 2006, because the competition issue had been raised. During the passage of that legislation, the Office of Fair Trading pointed out to me that it does not have responsibility for competition for any regulator designated under that Act—or, therefore, under this Bill. Behaviour of individual firms and individuals remains subject to the competition enforcement provisions in the normal way and, therefore, under the OFT’s supervision. We were able to satisfy your Lordships that we had addressed the need for competition as an important part of both consumer and public interest approaches to the legislation. I am not sure that that fully answers the point about the Office of Fair Trading, but I hope that it demonstrates that we have looked at the issue. I shall talk further with the noble Lord to ensure that I have picked up all his concerns. None the less, that is why we do not want to put the ranking in the Bill; it is for the regulator to determine.