Legal Services Bill [HL]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness for her response. I am also extremely grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Maclennan of Rogart, for his support for the amendment. The noble Baroness is correct to say that there are myriad examples in the Bill of a requirement on the LSB to consult. That is true. But the purpose of this amendment is to ensure that the Legal Services Board will consult when it wishes to make an initiative which is not plainly set out in the Bill with a consultation obligation. What lies behind the amendment is the philosophy, which I think is widely accepted in the Committee, that the LSB should be a light-touch regulator. There is real concern that without a general control on its powers of initiative, it may see its task as going beyond light-touch regulation. Moreover, there is an important link here with the levy. The Bill has detailed stipulations about how the obligation to pay the levy should be divided between the approved regulators, but there is nothing in the Bill to control the overall scale of the levy. If the Government are going to continue to refuse to insert any sort of control over the overall size of the levy, the only other way in which financial discipline can be introduced upon the LSB in the Bill is through an amendment of this sort—an amendment which to some degree seeks to control activities of the LSB at least to some degree. I therefore urge the noble Baroness to look at the amendment in the context not just of the principle of consultation, but also of all the financial provisions. The noble Baroness is not only nodding but nodding and smiling. This combination leads me to the ineluctable conclusion that she agrees with everything that I have said. I hope, therefore, that the implication to be drawn is that she will look again at the amendment between now and Report. She has clearly grasped the reasons for tabling it.