Legal Services Bill [HL]

My Lords, the noble Viscount—for me, anyway—makes my point. ““Taken as a whole? means taken as a whole; if a regulatory objective that said ““supports the constitutional principle of the rule of law? were being damaged in some way, but every other objective was being met in a way that we would applaud, the board, according to what I believe the noble Viscount said, could not act. I am saying that the board must be able to act. Of course—I have been explicit about this, and I think I have been quoted on it—the balance with what is happening, which is where the example of the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, comes in, is critical. That is what good regulatory practice says under Clause 3, and it is what the board is required to do. Under the amendment, the board simply could not act if there was a serious problem on the rule of law, access to justice or other aspects of the regulatory objectives that noble Lords might feel are more important than others but the other objectives were not affected. That is not what we would wish to see.