Legal Services Bill [HL]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness for her full reply. Indeed, she is right that the substitution of the Lord Chancellor for the Secretary of State is reassuring in the context of these two amendments. However, with great respect, it does not satisfy our concerns. The noble Baroness said that the scheme of the Bill was that the Office for Legal Complaints was subject to the Legal Services Board—that it was in a sense its creature—and that because the Legal Services Board is independent of the state, we should have no worries about the independence of the OLC. That, I think, is the fundamental proposition that the noble Baroness has been making; I see that she is nodding. In relation to that proposition, we have two concerns. The first is about the independence of the Legal Services Board. In the course of our debate on Clause 1, several noble Lords—I see, for example, the noble Lord, Lord Neill of Bladen, in his place—expressed serious concerns about the independence of the Legal Services Board. To the extent that the board is not independent, we should be concerned about the independence of the Office for Legal Complaints. Secondly, even if the noble Baroness is right about the independence of the Legal Services Board, why is it necessary to interpose a figure who is as authoritative and above the legal battle as the Lord Chancellor to second-guess, in some circumstances, the independent judgment of the Legal Services Board, to which the Office for Legal Complaints is supposed to be responsible? In our submission, the Bill does not reflect the proposition that the noble Baroness has put before the Chamber—that the independence of the Legal Services Board should allay any concerns we have about the independence of the Office for Legal Complaints. Perhaps I could put the point this way. I agree entirely with what the noble Baroness is trying to achieve; I simply do not think that the Bill reflects her objective.