Legal Services Bill [Lords]

When I consider the solicitors in my area, one has to travel a significant distance to find a firm that I have been prepared to recommend to my constituents—or even to ask my constituents to contemplate—on the basis that it will not charge. The vast majority of complaints have come from my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr. Jones), my right hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley (Mr. Barron) and me. What that says to me is not that our areas are particularly problem areas, but that the publicity in them has been such as to encourage people to come forward. What is really interesting is that not a single one of the 1,500 of my constituents who complained to me had any idea that they could take forward a complaint process. Another interesting piece of research is in the Law Society’s records and is waiting to be published. I had to fight some battles to get these questions asked, but the Law Society puts five questions to new complainants and one of them is, ““What experience have you had of the legal profession before?”” I have seen the answers of my constituents and I can say that the majority, and particularly the elderly, have the perception that people only go to a solicitor if they have been in some problems with the police and require defending. That is their perception—not their experience—of the legal profession. The younger generation have a slightly different perspective because more of them have had experience—not necessarily a pleasant one—of family law courts, for example. As to challenging the high and mighty—whether it be the Government, firms of solicitors or whatever—my constituents do not have much experience of it. It may not be a term that is fashionable in this House these days, but class is major issue when it comes to access to justice. I find that the upper classes always have a family solicitor and always have had one. The middle classes have a mixed experience, but they know what questions to ask. They sometimes get into difficulties, but they come forward and demand justice, and they have some idea that there may be a complaints procedure to go through. The working classes, from my experience, work on the basis that a solicitor is a man or a woman who can be trusted. It is a bit like with a police officer or perhaps an accountant in some vague notion, but a solicitor is someone who can be trusted. It seems to me to be rather good for a profession to imbue in people the idea that that the profession can be trusted precisely because it is a profession, which is exactly why I break from the general consensus that only my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich, West (Mr. Bailey) has really broken with so far. That is why I say that the cosiness with which both Houses seem to want to go forward does not satisfy me or, I believe, the interests of my constituents. Regulation needs to be highly robust precisely because of the important traditional reputation of the legal profession, as people see it and wish to see it. That must be the case. I commend the recent changes in how the Law Society has handled complaints with its new set-up and new name—though that confuses me, never mind my constituents. What we see is a far more rigorous and robust system in place, which is exactly the direction of travel that is needed. My fear in respect of some of the amendments from the other place is that they appear to rein in that direction of travel. I volunteered to sit on the Joint Committee on pre-legislative scrutiny, but I was not successful in my application through the usual channels! The places were filled by those with far more knowledge of the workings of the law than myself. That is a fundamental weakness in terms of our debate and the debate in the other place, but not because it invalidates the points that others make. It is not a little point, however, to suggest that if this were a debate on building the resource base and legal parameters of co-operatives, and if the pre-legislative scrutiny committee were made up of 18 out of 20 members who were active co-operators earning a living previously, currently or— perhaps if the electorate no longer wants them—in the future in that profession, one might perceive that a vested interest was involved. There have been two fascinating historic developments tonight—the first I welcome, the second I merely observe. The one I welcome is the rolling back of some of the misconceptions about Nolan. Under Nolan, the perception held among the trade unions was that if someone was a trade unionist, it was not possible to speak on issues that were directly related to trade unions. One could not advocate or move amendments and all the rest of it. Yet what we have seen here is the ability of members of the various legal trade unions or legal executives, solicitors and barristers to do precisely that, as they did in the House of Lords. Doubtless they wanted to move and support amendments either in Committee or on the Floor of the House. I welcome that, because under the Nolan principles the issue always was transparency, not putting restrictions on what people can do. I have not sought to challenge anyone’s right to advocate on that basis and I will not do so as the Bill progresses.