Legal Services Bill [HL]

Probably, but I will not try—the noble Lord can do it for me. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Lyell, asked me about issues to do with the breakdown of the responsibilities between the Lord Chancellor and the Secretary of State. I would rather deal with that when we come to the amendment on who should have responsibility because I will have more to say then. Equally, some noble Lords prefer Amendment No. 5 to this one, while others see this as being part and parcel of Amendment No. 5. Others feel that if I answer regarding the Secretary of State and the Lord Chancellor, I will have strengthened—or weakened—my case when we come to Amendment No. 5. Let me deal with the specific amendments before us; I hope that as we move through and noble Lords reflect on this, more of a picture will be created. Two issues have emerged from our debate: the first is how we ensure independence. Noble Lords would feel varying degrees of comfort, depending on the role of the Lord Chancellor, the Lord Chief Justice and Her Majesty the Queen, but the underlying issue is to make sure that this is done independently. There are ways of ensuring that noble Lords can be comfortable that the board is independent that do not necessarily require these amendments. I have had discussions with noble Lords and various organisations and there is a fundamental principle I do not shy away from as an area where people are looking for ways to be encouraged that this is the case. The Government argue that the way we have set it up is right, and I will say more about that shortly. Secondly, we are setting up a regulatory regime. Set practices under this Government and previous Governments for establishing such regimes have served us well. The Financial Services Authority, the Office of Fair Trading, the Commission for Racial Equality and the Competition Commission were all appointed by Secretaries of State; they all serve us well and are considered by everyone to be independent. We have reflected on how best practice has been established and has grown up to set up a regulatory regime. The Office of the Commissioner for Public Appointments would play the key role, and the code of practice—noble Lords will be familiar with it, but I am happy to place a copy in the Library—sets out the principles under which that should be done. Ministerial responsibility, merit, independent scrutiny, equal opportunities, probity, openness and transparency, and proportionality are the principles under which appointments are made. The code of practice, which runs to some 65 pages, is specific about how these things will be done. We should pay tribute to the commissioner’s office for its work in that regard. The code was clarified and amended in part in August 2005. Some noble Lords may not be familiar with it and, before we reach the next stage of our debates, I strongly recommend that they look at it because it contains the principles and the basis on which appointments will be made. We believe that they reflect independence, openness, transparency and merit as the key principles within the seven that I indicated with which one would go about making appointments. We have sought to apply regulatory regimes and current best practice. We have been very clear and consistent in saying that that is precisely what we would do. No one has suggested to me that any of the other bodies that have been appointed either under the practices at the time or current practices are anything other than independent, open, transparent and all the things that noble Lords would seek. I begin from that principle, but I also recognise that noble Lords are looking to tease out the matter, to hold more discussions and to look at ways in which we can be even clearer about the independence principle. I look forward to the succession of debates that we will have on the back of this one. On the amendment concerning the role of Her Majesty the Queen, of course Her Majesty is eminently qualified to exercise her jurisdiction in relation to some public appointments but, in this case, we do not believe that that is necessary. For the reasons that I have given, we believe that the procedure should be that used in appointing the eminent regulatory bodies that have already been set up, and it is not appropriate to link these appointments to the Judicial Appointments Commission. That commission was set up to do a different job and involves a different set of skills. In my view, it is doing fantastic work but it is a different job from this one, and we think that the regime that we are proposing under the OCPA rules is the best one to take forward. I know that I have not addressed all the other issues that will come out in debates on the other amendments, but I hope that I have given the basis for rejecting this amendment.