Legal Services Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 29: 29: Clause 3 , page 2, line 25, at end insert— ““( ) The Board must, so far as is reasonably practicable, act in partnership with the approved regulators.”” The noble Lord said: My Lords, as I am sure that the noble Baroness is well aware, the amendment is identical in terms to Amendment No. 31, tabled in Committee. It generated a short debate which is to be found in Hansard of 9 January 2007 at cols. 173 to 176. The background to the amendment—I do not intend to go into as much detail as I did in Committee—isthe reaction of the Government to one of the recommendations of the Joint Committee. That recommendation essentially endorsed Sir David Clementi’s recommendation that the manner of regulation for the Legal Services Board should be not direct but supervisory. In their response to the Joint Committee, the Government said: "““The Government agrees that the intention of the Legal Services Board should be to work in partnership with the authorised regulators, leaving them with the responsibility for day to day regulation. The Legal Services Board should exercise its powers only where approved regulators are clearly failing””." The amendment seeks to incorporate this notion into the Bill at this point. However, later amendments express precisely the same principle in rather different terms. I refer the Minister in particular to Amendment No. 174, which I anticipate we will come to at some stage on Wednesday afternoon. The theme will be familiar to the Minister: the existing professional bodies should be the front-line regulators, and the Legal Services Board should have a supervisory role, intervening only if it believes that a front-line regulator is failing in its duty in some way or another. The Minister seemed to endorse this approach at various points in Committee. However, she was reluctant to have it reflected in the Bill. With the greatest possible respect to her, this is not satisfactory. Once the Legal Services Board is up and running, it will inform itself on the basis of the words of the statute itself, and there will undoubtedly be a temptation for it to over-regulate. An amendment such as this would make it absolutely clear to the board what the limits of its regulatory powers are. The Government are on record as fully supporting the approach that is reflected in the amendment. Will the Minister therefore reflect what the Government’s response is by agreeing to the amendment? I beg to move.