Legal Services Bill [Lords]

I do not think that £20,000 is a high enough limit. May I give the Minister an example? Mrs. X, from Stanley in my constituency, recently complained to me about a firm of solicitors called Mark Gilbert Morse, which handled a miners’ compensation case on her behalf and rejected an offer of £42,000 from the DTI without even consulting her. Subsequently the offer was reduced, and it was only through the legal services complaints service that we shamed the company into paying her the original figure of £42,000. If it had been pinned down at £20,000, my constituent would have lost in excess of £22,000.