Legal Services Bill [Lords]

My hon. Friend makes a valid point. He is right: the purpose of the office for legal complaints is to have a one-stop shop to make a judgment as to who, if anyone, is at fault. Time and again, consumers have raised with me the issue that it is difficult for them to tell whether the fault is the solicitor’s or the barrister’s. To get beneath the skin of some of the less obvious issues, we have undertaken long, thorough research and wide-ranging consultation. Concerns about the competitiveness of the sector began with the OFT’s 2001 report, ““Competition in Professions””. That identified a number of potentially unduly restrictive rules of the legal profession, which had the potential to drive up costs and prices, limit access and choice, reduce value for money, and inhibit innovation in the supply of services. To a Government committed to delivering a better deal for the consumer, that is simply unacceptable. Following the OFT's report, the Government consulted publicly throughout 2002, and in July 2003 concluded that the current regulatory framework was"““outdated, inflexible, over-complex and insufficiently accountable or transparent””." It was clear that the existing regulatory framework was more like a ““regulatory maze””, with a wide range of oversight regulators who had overlapping responsibilities and few clear objectives. The problems were not restricted to oversight regulators. The legal professional bodies contributed to the ““maze”” by failing to separate the exercise of their regulatory and representative functions. All of that drove the Government to the inescapable conclusion that reform was not only necessary but long overdue. We therefore immediately appointed Sir David Clementi and charged him with the task of identifying a new framework that would be independent in representing the public and consumer interest, comprehensive, accountable, consistent, flexible, transparent and no more restrictive or burdensome than is clearly justified. He published his report in December 2004. I want to put on record that he lived up to that challenge and produced an excellent report. The model that Sir David proposed was one of strong oversight regulation under which legal professional bodies would carry out day-to-day regulation provided they separated their regulatory and representative functions. He also proposed that there should be a clear set of statutory objectives and, importantly, that complaints handling should be taken away from the legal professions. The Government broadly accepted Sir David’s recommendations and in October 2005 published the White Paper ““The Future of Legal Services: Putting Consumers First””. I leave it to hon. Members to work out from the title exactly where the Government stand on the issue. In May last year, a draft Legal Services Bill was subjected to pre-legislative scrutiny by a Joint Committee of both Houses, and a very useful process that turned out to be. I am very grateful to the Committee for the hard work that it put into that.