Legal Services Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 44: 44: Clause 28, page 13, line 38, leave out ““prejudiced”” and insert ““improperly constrained or influenced”” The noble Lord said: Further to the recommendations of Sir David Clementi’s committee, the Bill requires professional bodies to separate their regulatory responsibilities from any representational role they might have and to ensure that regulatory decisions are not subject to undue representational influence. We support the provisions in Clause 29 requiring the board to make rules concerning internal governance. These will ensure that decisions on regulatory functions are taken independently from decisions relating to representational functions. The purpose of the amendment is to ensure that the Legal Services Board will interfere only with the regulatory functions of the approved regulators and not with the representative arm. This is a probing amendment designed to prohibit any interference with the representative functions of an approved regulator by the board. We are sure that that is the Government’s intention, but we are not convinced that they have achieved it. Of course, we support the Clementi recommendations that require professional bodies to separate their regulatory responsibilities from any representational role and ensure that decisions on regulatory and representative functions are taken independently. However, we are concerned that the current drafting of the provision inadvertently risks constraining perfectly proper activities of the representative body. The concern stems from the use of the word ““prejudiced””. Our preoccupation is with whether the provision inadvertently risks constraining perfectly proper activities of the representative body. For example, a professional body might properly provide a service to its members in which it defends them in the event of disciplinary action being taken against them on similar lines to the work of the Medical Defence Union. One would hope that the regulatory arm would regard that as a perfectly proper exercise of the representative body's role and would indeed recognise the importance of those facing serious disciplinary charges being properly represented. However, it may be that the regulatory arm would take a different view, particularly if the defence service led to a number of people being cleared of disciplinary charges. In those circumstances, the regulatory board might argue that its effectiveness was being prejudiced by the representation side’s activities. For that reason we have suggested wording that would not allow such an interpretation. We support what we believe are the Government’s motives here, but we would like to see that clarified and amended so that only improper activity would entitle the regulatory body to notify the Legal Services Board. I beg to move.