Legal Services Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 142B: 142B:Clause 166 , page 86, line 8, after ““means”” insert ““two-thirds of”” The noble Lord said: Amendment No. 142B has to some extent been foreshadowed by the previous debates on the levy; it is designed to ensure that the Government meet a proportion of the running costs of the Legal Services Board. As the Bill stands, the entire cost of the new regulatory framework will be met by the private sector. Amendment No. 142B would at least ensure that the Government contribute one-third of the running costs of the board, and would remove an inconsistency in the Government’s approach to Sir David Clementi’s report. The Government accepted Sir David’s advice in creating a supervisory tier to regulation but then ignored his recommendation that the board should, at least in part, be funded by public money. He made several forceful arguments to that effect. First, the current position is that the Government contribute to the cost of supervisory functions through judicial oversight and the oversight function carried out by government departments. Secondly, the board has a wider remit than simply the oversight of practitioners in the legal professions, a point I made in speaking to a previous amendment. By giving the board regulatory objectives that include, for example, access to justice, the Bill has widened the authority of the Legal Services Board beyond that which should be reasonably funded by the professions. As already pointed out in the debate on the amendments grouped with Amendment No. 139H, the Joint Committee concluded that the legal profession should not reasonably be expected to bear the burden of public policy consideration currently funded by the Government, such as the consideration of whether additional legal services should come within the regulatory framework. The third justification that Sir David offered recalls the subject of the independence of the profession. This is a very important point in the context of a Bill that is in no small part designed to improve the public perception of the legal profession and the provision of legal services. As Sir David himself said, "““an element of payment by other than the bodies being regulated confirms that the regulator is independent of the regulatee””." Finally, the Government have provided a helpful precedent in the form of the Financial Reporting Council. The Government meet one-third of the cost of the Financial Reporting Council, so Amendment No. 142B would do no more than bring the Legal Services Board in line with that. We would press the Government for justification as to why they are prepared to bear partially the costs of the supervisory tier of regulation in the accountancy field but not to make an equivalent commitment in the legal environment. It is also the case that the state meets the full cost of the supervisory tier of healthcare regulation in respect of the Council for Healthcare Regulatory Excellence. For all these reasons, and with the weight of Sir David’s report behind us, we urge the Government to consider contributing to the ongoing costs of the Legal Services Board. I beg to move.