Legal Services Bill [HL]

moved AmendmentNo. 4: 4: Schedule 1 , page 112, line 6, leave out ““the Secretary of State”” and insert ““Her Majesty on the recommendation of the Lord Chancellor pursuant to the provisions of section 85(1)(b) of the Constitutional Reform Act 2005”” The noble Lord said: We now come to an important part of the Bill, dealing with the independence of the Legal Services Board. The danger seen generally and reflected in the speeches at Second Reading is that the Legal Services Board be thought a body set up simply to introduce government influence into the legal profession. I am sure that is not the intention of the Government, and it is important that they make that absolutely clear in the Bill. The Legal Services Board is going to deal with a number of bodies—to take two, the Law Society and the Bar Council, which will presumably be approved regulators—that are well established, with a long history of self-regulation and completely independent of government. It is essential that the Legal Services Board itself be seen to be independent and to carry weight. It will deal with people in the profession who know that profession from the roots up. The board, consisting as it will of a number of lay persons, must demonstrate that it is a weighty body capable of giving directions, and independent of any government or political interference. The Bill simply provides that the Secretary of State, unnamed—it could be any Secretary of State, perhaps even the Home Secretary—is the person who appoints the Legal Services Board. We do not think that is adequate. The importance of giving stature to the board is such that the Bill ought to follow the procedure in the Constitutional Reform Act 2005. Your Lordships will recall that when it was decided that the Lord Chancellor should cease to have the function of appointing judges and the matter was handed over to an appointments board, various levels of mechanism were introduced to make those appointments. In our view, the appropriate level of appointment is that set out in Section 85(1)(b) of the Constitutional Reform Act 2005, wherebythe appointment is made by Her Majesty on the recommendation of the Lord Chancellor, but a recommendation which is informed by the selection process of the commission set up under that Act. The sort of office holders that Section 85(1)(b) referred to are, for example, district judges and people of considerable importance and rank, certainly of no less or greater rank than one would envisage in a member of the Legal Services Board. Removing the appointment of members of the board from simply the Secretary of State—who can appoint anybody—to the mechanisms used for office holders seems a sensible way of proceeding. We will later debate in Amendment No. 5 and the amendments grouped with it the proposal thatthe appointments be made with the concurrence of the Lord Chief Justice. I am sure that the objectives of those who tabled those amendments are exactly the same as mine—that is, to ensure independence, integrity and weight. In my view, it is far better to go to the machinery that we have in place, although it may need some amendment. It would require us to amend the first part of Schedule 14 of the Act to include members of the board as appropriate office holders, which could be done by a simple order by the Lord Chancellor. But we believe that the Lord Chancellor should be the person who makes the appointment and recommendation from a selection by the commission, and it is Her Majesty’s appointment that guarantees independence. I beg to move.