Legal Services Bill [HL]

I thank the noble Baroness for her reply, and I thank all noble Lords who have spoken. I was pleased to hear from the noble Baroness that she is talking to the Bar Council; because it suggests that, whatever the outcome of the amendment this evening, she will continue to reflect on what she has said to your Lordships tonight. The noble Baroness raised a number of issues in response to the speeches that have been made. First, there was the issue of consumer concerns. I must say that I find that the least convincing of the arguments that the noble Baroness has advanced tonight. It is clear from the evidence of the Legal Services Ombudsman that the performance of the Bar in exercising its disciplinary powers has been outstanding. I see that the noble Baroness has no quarrel with that observation. In that case, how can consumer concerns be a possible issue in determining whether it would be safe to delegate? It is clear that consumer concerns are not an issue. Then the noble Baroness raised the question of equality. I suggest to the noble Baroness that the position of the Bar and the position of the Law Society are quite different. The noble Lord, Lord Borrie, pointed out that the Law Society accepts, absolutely, that a form of delegation to the approved regulator for solicitors would not, at least in the foreseeable future, be appropriate. By contrast, the Bar, through its disciplinary procedures, has established that it is completely competent to do the work that it has been doing already. The Bar is, on the whole, a profession to which solicitors refer difficult legal problems, or problems that require someone who has audience in the High Court. The Bar performs a completely different function from solicitors. It is not difficult, therefore, to make that distinction to consumer organisations; we are not talking about professions that do the same thing. So why is the issue of equality relevant? The two professions are in very different situations. Although it is the widespread view of all noble Lords who have spoken that the Bar’s disciplinary procedures are a combination of high-quality and low cost, the noble Baroness says that the OLC will recruit people who have qualifications equivalent to those that the Bar discipline authorities have at the moment. I suggest to her that that will substitute the existing low-cost, high-standard regulation with high-cost regulation that might well be low standard. We do not know how that will turn out—that would be speculation—and in any case, good or bad, it will be inordinately expensive. The noble Lord, Lord Carlile, suggested that it might be 10 times more; I do not know whether that would be true; but it will certainly cost substantially more than it does at the moment. The noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, made the same point in a different way. If you can delegate safely and satisfactorily, why buy in—especially as the individuals who will ultimately bear the financial burden of all of this are the consumers? Yet they are precisely the people in whose interests this legislation is about to feature on the statute book. Finally, the noble Baroness did not address what many noble Lords consider to be one of the most important features of the amendment, which is that inadequacies in service and misconduct will be dealt with by the same authority. Some three-quarters of all allegations against the Bar involve a mixture of those two matters. It will be extremely difficult for the complainant to understand why his or her complaint has to be dealt with by two authorities. It will also be extremely confusing. It will be much more expensive. It might lead to a conflict of view between the OLC on the service matter and the Bar Council that will deal with the misconduct dimension. I am anxious to hear what the noble Baroness has to say in response to those observations.