Legal Services Bill [HL]

The noble Lord, Lord Maclennan of Rogart, has reasonably and legitimately voiced a number of concerns about alternative business structures. Indeed, the debate on this part of the Bill—which we are nearing the final clauses of—has demonstrated a number of concerns, including access to justice and the availability of legal services in rural areas. The difficulty with the amendment is that there are so many possible varieties of alternative business structures ranging from narrower structures that are combinations of different types of lawyers—barristers, solicitors and others—to the other extreme of alternative business structure where a substantial retail business tacks legal services on to its existing services. In between, there must be a huge variety of structures. I am interested to see various kinds of alternative business structures develop positively to provide services that are not readily available now or to offer them in a way that is of higher quality, better value and more use to communities than the present way in which legal services are offered. One can only speculate about what the structure might be, but I am sure that there will be a huge variety of alternative business structures in different parts of the country, and so be it. The part of the Bill that we have just been considering in such detail has a host of restrictions, controls and safeguards to ensure that the things about which the noble Lord, Lord Maclennan, is rightly concerned will be observed in the course of licensing and so on. What would be the value of a pilot scheme involving one kind of alternative business structure when so many other structures would be so different that it would not tell very much? I am all in favour of pilot schemes in principle, but only if we can draw sensible and helpful lessons from them. I do not see that in the noble Lord’s proposal.