Legal Services Bill [HL]

The noble Baroness has been uncharacteristically uncompromising in opposing Amendment No. 133. In respect of almost all the other amendments advanced today, she has demonstrated an agreeable suppleness which, in this case, has been totally absent. The noble Baroness must be aware of the strength of feeling on all sides of the Committee about this matter. I thought that the issue was stated quite brilliantly by the noble Lord, Lord Neill of Bladen, when he said that Clause 133 is punishment for being an innocent party. That surely is a principle that we cannot enshrine in our legislation. The Minister advanced a number of explanations for Clause 133. Of them all, I was struck perhaps most forcefully when she talked about the relationship between the levy and the costs of individual cases. She suggested that if the rule in Clause 133 were different, the levy would have to be much higher. Well, so be it. After all, the whole scheme is based on the fact that it is self-financing; and if it means that the principle that innocent parties should not have to pay is to be observed and if the cost of that is a higher levy, so be it, for the principle is much more important. I should have thought that there was an elegant escape route for the noble Baroness. It was suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Maclennan of Rogart; namely, for the noble Baroness to introduce an amendment on Report with the presumption based on the principle adumbrated by the noble Lord, Lord Neill of Bladen, qualified by the fact that there are sometimes circumstances in which an innocent party has nevertheless done things that should mean, in whole or part, that he or she makes some contribution to the costs of the proceeding—in other words, a reversal of the presumption. That would be entirely understood and, indeed, it would reflect the development of the law of costs in the High Court and the county courts. I think that not to have the principle stated in the Bill would be quite unacceptable to all noble Lords who have spoken. If the noble Baroness is not prepared to move on this point, she will be in no doubt that this will be one of the matters on which we will inevitably vote.