Legal Services Bill [HL]

I thank the noble Lord for that opportunity. It will not surprise him to hear that I do not want to go into detail on everything now. The position that I hold is that we accept the recommendations on specific points that the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee asked us to consider. There are a number of areas on which it has asked the Government and this Chamber to think further, and we will listen with interest to what is said on those matters. I shall give what I hope is the benign explanation of these provisions. We set out in the framework of the Legal Services Board that it should have a lay majority, but we have also been very clear that, as there is regulation of different bodies, expertise and experience is needed on the board as well. In future, the Legal Services Board may take on two or three new areas of regulation that are not currently covered. I shall not speculate on what they might be; they may not exist, but they might. Indeed, there are amendments to the Bill that we shall come to later that suggest at least one area in which that might be the case in future. If that were to happen, the board might reasonably wish to add on someone with expertise in those professions, which would lead to the lay members becoming a minority. So the power is specifically to enable the Lord Chancellor or Secretary of State to come in and, by order, improve the numbers so that the lay members remain the majority. It is reasonable to ask whether, if that is the only circumstance, it should not simply be put in the Bill—but, as always, those are simply the circumstances that we can think of at the moment. I cannot think of any others, but there might be some. The issue that the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, raises is that the Lord Chancellor may be able to sneak something under the wire by negative procedure. One way in which to address his concerns would be for me to take the matter away to allow us to make it an affirmative rather than negative resolution. That would mean that, if the numbers were to be expanded, it would have to come through a debate in this Chamber and another place, so nothing could be done that would suggest that the Secretary of State was trying to increase the numbers for other reasons. The noble Lord also has the knowledge of my remarks, which are in Hansard, about the purposes to which the provision will be put. If there were other purposes, the Minister—whether it was me or another Minister—would have to explain in full detail to this Chamber and in another place precisely what was being done and why. I hope that that addresses the noble Lord’s concern. He may not wish to answer that directly now, but I put the offer on the table.