Legal Services Bill [HL]

When listening to the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, I had in mind the words festina lente, and he then used that expression. It is for the Government to take their time—hasten slowly. A number of possibilities have now been put forward. I think that a blanket sunset clause has its problems, although I shall listen to what the noble Lord,Lord Hunt, says in due course. Obviously there must be investment, which after five years could be considerable in terms of money, buildings, people and careers, so a blanket approach is not so attractive. On the other hand, the suggestion of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, has considerable attractions: a specific type of unusual organisation should be limited in its period. A company or individual who wished to adopt that approach would then at least know how much money and so on to put into that organisation to see whether it worked. At the end of the day, I come down in favour of my noble friend’s amendment, which contains the possibilities of more than one experiment. A pilot scheme does not necessarily have to consist of one type of organisation in one place. Proposed subsection (2) suggests: "““In establishing a pilot scheme the Secretary of State shall take into consideration … the demography of the area, and … the size of the area””." It occurs to me that a sensible way of hastening slowly would be to permit one organisation to operate, for example, in a rural area, another in a town area and another to deal with commercial law or whatever. The approach could be either geographical or functional, but there should be a series of experiments taking into account the criticisms of the noble Lord, Lord Borrie, who suggested that it is impossible to say that there must be one type of organisation. The answer is a series of pilot schemes or the alternative proposed by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay.