Legal Services Bill [HL]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, returns to the question of intervention, on which there have been many discussions. Amendments Nos. 43 and 44 are wholly consistent with Sir David Clementi’s original recommendations and the Government’s earlier proposed intention to ensure that the LSB powers of intervention were exercised only in cases where there is a serious impact on regulatory objectives taken as a whole, rather than a merely adverse impact on one or more of those objectives. Consultation, as proposed by these amendments, is an essential means to implement the powers of intervention in a manner originally intended by the Government to maintain the supervisory role and an effective, efficient front-line regulation by the approved bodies. Your Lordships may think that this matter of principle, to which we return again and again, ought to be recognised as such in the Bill. One might group together certain clauses, such as Clauses 3 to 5 and 40 to 43, for such an exercise. On doing that, one has to distinguish between this statement of principle, which applies only to the LSB and would serve, if expressed, as an amendment to Clause 3, and Amendment No. 5, however redrafted, which would be of generic application to all regulatory bodies and continue to serve as an amendment to Clause 1. I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute.