Legal Services Bill [HL]

I declare an interest in apple pie and motherhood, and in monitoring and research, which are obviously essential to see how the various schemes work. But monitoring and research require something at the end of the process: if the monitoring and research into a scheme say that it does not work, what happens then? I am not attracted by a sunset clause, as I indicated in the previous debate. Perhaps the Minister could assure us that, under Clause 84, the power of the licensing authority to, "““modify the terms of a licence granted by it””," and, under subsection (1)(b), "““in such other circumstances as may be specified in its licensing rules””," could cover the modification of a class of alternative business structures that were proving to be particularly unsatisfactory as monitoring and research demonstrated. Something along those lines might be a way forward.I am not sure that that was the intention behind Clause 84(1)(b), but the ability to alter a licence significantly to get rid of, for example, cherry-picking in a particular class of alternative business structures would be very desirable. I invite the Minister to consider the proposal along those lines.