Legal Services Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 352: 352: Clause 129, page 66, line 21, leave out from ““rules”” to ““specified”” and insert ““must make provision permitting such persons as may be”” The noble Baroness said: My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 353, 355, 357 to 360, 379 and 380, 382, 394 and 395, 402 to 404, 427, 434 and 446. This group of amendments, aimed at further protecting the consumers of legal services, responds to amendments debated in Committee which I agreed to take away and consider. While some are minor and clarificatory, I hope noble Lords will agree that others are of real substance and will improve the Bill. Amendments Nos. 352 and 353 respond to amendments helpfully moved by the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, in Committee. They will require scheme rules to make provision permitting specified persons to continue a complaint following the death or incapacitation of the original complainant. This means that the Office for Legal Complaints must give proper consideration to, and consult on, which persons should be allowed to continue a complaint. Complainants and their relatives or representatives will be certain whether and when they are eligible to continue a complaint. Amendment No. 355 arises out of helpful points made in Committee by my noble friend Lord Whitty clarifying the limits on the power of the Office for Legal Complaints to award costs against a party in favour of the OLC. As I said in Committee, it is important to strike a balance between allowing on the one hand the Office for Legal Complaints to be able to call to account complainants who, although they may have a genuine complaint, add disproportionately to the costs of determining it by utterly unreasonable behaviour, and preventing members of the legal profession from abusing this provision by deterring well founded complaints by suggesting that the complainant might have to contribute to the costs. We think that the wording of this amendment will produce the right balance. Noble Lords agreed in Committee that it is enormously important that the ombudsman scheme should not deter in any way genuine complainants from complaining, and therefore this amendment sets a high threshold for the award of costs against a complainant. Amendments Nos. 357, 358, 359 and 360 make it clear who can exercise the power of summary dismissal of a complaint. I agreed with the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, on the fifth day in Committee that this should be a power exercisable only by an ombudsman, and the wording has been reconsidered with a view to making it entirely clear. Amendments Nos. 379, 380 and 382 have been drafted in response to amendments tabled earlier by the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, and my noble friend Lord Whitty. In those circumstances, which we expect to be rare, where a respondent fails or refuses to comply with an ombudsman’s determination, these amendments will give ombudsmen the power to take enforcement action in relation to that determination on a complainant’s behalf, and we will set out the exact details in the scheme rules. These amendments therefore provide additional protection for vulnerable people who might not wish or know how to seek a court order themselves. Individuals may of course take action themselves, if they so wish, without the ombudsman’s assistance. Amendments Nos. 394, 395 and 446 address concerns expressed in Committee by my noble friend Lady Henig, who is not in her place today. They enable approved regulators to respond quickly and effectively in cases of widespread wrongdoing, where potentially large numbers of consumers may be affected, but they may not know that they have a complaint or, indeed, the procedure for complaining. In circumstances where an approved regulator suspects widespread wrongdoing, these amendments will ensure that approved regulators can require authorised persons to investigate their files, and if they find signs of potential wrongdoing, alert the consumer and initiate the internal complaints process. Because of the importance of maintaining a clear role for the Office for Legal Complaints in providing redress, the amendments I have tabled do not allow approved regulators to award redress or require authorised persons to pay redress. Amendments Nos. 402 to 404, 427 and 434 again are tabled in response to persuasive arguments made in Committee by my noble friend Lord Whitty and others who have rightly identified that it is important for the OLC to have the power to administer a voluntary complaints handling scheme. The amendments will therefore give the Office for Legal Complaints the necessary powers to establish a voluntary scheme, subject to and within such boundaries as may be set by an enabling order made by the Lord Chancellor on the recommendation of the OLC or the LSB. I beg to move.