Legal Services Bill [HL]

The noble Lord, Lord Neill of Bladen, has made a very good point on this line of amendments. My understanding is that the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, and indeed the Liberal amendments, which are in the same line, are intended to be directed not at an individual complaint, but at the system that is being operated by the Office for Legal Complaints. If there is a systematic failure by the Office for Legal Complaints to fulfil its role in the way the Legal Services Board thinks it ought to be fulfilled, that would give the Legal Services Board the opportunity to issue directions ex post, which would correct the conduct of the OLC. That is what I understood by this line of amendments. We have not tabled any amendments; but if their approach is the one that ought to be adopted by your Lordships, then they would be, in my submission, the proper way of achieving it. These amendments have made me look in a little more detail at Clauses 111 to 118. I must confess to your Lordships—particularly in the context of the Minister’s earlier remarks about the accountability of the OLC to the Legal Services Board—that these provisions give rise to considerable cause for concern, at least to me. This is because Clause 115 requires the Office for Legal Complaints to prepare an annual report, which will go to the Secretary of State—soon to be substituted by the Lord Chancellor—and then be laid before Parliament. That suggests an entirely different line of accountability for the OLC from the one suggested by the noble Baroness, which is accountability to the Legal Services Board. Would it not be more appropriate for the Legal Services Board’s annual report to contain everything that it is necessary to say about the Office for Legal Complaints, making Clause 115 surplus to requirements? Indeed, if Parliament discussed an annual report under Clause 115, prepared by the Office for Legal Complaints, there might be a danger that it would come to an entirely different view about how the Office for Legal Complaints ought to operate from the one taken by the Legal Services Board. Surely parliamentary accountability ought exclusively to lie in the relationship between the Legal Services Board and Parliament. If both these institutions independently account to Parliament, the potential for confusion is considerable. The noble Baroness might be saying to your Lordships in response to these amendments that Clause 118 requires the OLC to meet performance targets and, if it does not, that the Legal Services Board has certain powers in relation to the OLC. Performance targets, however, are quite different from those matters raised by the noble Lords, Lord Whitty and Lord Maclennan of Rogart. I can summarise my observations by saying that if the noble Baroness wishes to sustain her earlier argument that the Office for Legal Complaints is accountable to the Legal Services Board, Clauses 111 to 118 do not properly reflect that.