Legal Services Bill [HL]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for putting forward those propositions. LDPs come into force when the Bill is passed, so we will have the benefit of them in any event. The difficulty of piloting, if it were desirable—and no one has yet solved this problem—is with the assumption that the provision of legal services is on a strictly geographical basis—in the north of England or central Wales, for example—when services are not necessarily provided in that way. We do not have localities in the same way as we did; services are provided by the internet and other means across the country. The local high street solicitor might be a fabulous idea, like the sound of the ball on the willow bat, but the situation has moved on in many cases—and that is very difficult to constrain. By doing as noble Lords suggest, we might end up enabling in a particular locality something that could be construed—although I have not tested this yet and merely make the proposition—as a very anti-competitive measure. We would have to select the first 20 companies or a group of companies operating in a certain locality that could create new structures and operate on that basis, offering different kinds of services. But in the next town, or five miles up the road or 200 yards up the road, there would be companies that could not do that. That is my difficulty with the proposal. I have tried to approach the suggestion that the process should be incremental by looking at it in the context of ensuring when it is set up it is right. Although I know that the noble Lord has quite reasonably raised issues about conditional fee agreements—and I have considered them—this is a different issue. It is right and proper to think about lessons learnt from setting up different aspects up of a regulatory framework and we have to ensure that we get it right. But that is how I would go with the opportunity to monitor. Perhaps we can think further about that.