Legal Services Bill [HL]

I agree with my noble and learned friend that this group and the previous group should be looked at together and that if we can find a solution that reflects what we are seeking to achieve, we should not worry excessively as to whether the words of one amendment or another are respected in terms. Before I withdraw the amendment, I shall allow myself a final reflection. We have talked much this afternoon about the relationship between the Legal Services Board and the approved regulators and have said that the LSB is the supervisor and that the primary regulator is the approved regulator. In responding to the last intervention made before my noble and learned friend stood up, the noble Baroness was keen to emphasise the concerns of the consumer lobby; she mentioned that on a number of occasions throughout the afternoon. One of the difficulties that we face in the Bill is that althoughthe Government have accepted the Clementi philosophy—that the front-line regulators are the approved regulators—the impression is growing on me that the consumer lobby does not trust the approved regulators and that the only regulator that it trusts is the Legal Services Board. That is why the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, intervened in the previous amendment and is, I suspect, why the Government are reluctant to put on the face of the Bill the principle that they say is the governing principle that lies behind the Bill—that the approved regulators are the primary regulators. It is late in the evening and my reflection is general rather than being specifically related to the Bill; but if I am right about this, we have a problem, do we not? Try as we might, the Government’s concerns about the consumer lobby would always prevent them from putting the Clementi philosophy on the face of the Bill.