Legal Services Bill [Lords]

Those solicitors think that some of the claims will not be worth a great deal and can be pushed to the back of the queue. I have cases, as I am sure my hon. Friend has, in which people have been waiting six or seven years for progress to be made. They ask to be transferred to a solicitor who might do something about it and are refused. Again, it is extraordinary, but we cannot think that it is a unique Bassetlaw, north Nottinghamshire experience, because the firms are dotted around the country, from Brighton up to the north-east. My hon. Friend the Member for North Durham, who represents an entirely different part of the country, has found exactly the same. What a surprise; what a coincidence. This is a national issue. I am talking about people who are not used to dealing with the legal profession—about vulnerable clients. Access to justice, and the expansion of justice, should be aimed at such people, whether it involves large firms of solicitors or small local firms. I have no strong view in either direction, but if we are to expand the market, I want access to justice to mean access for those people and many more. I want access to justice for people who have been done over in a range of ways, not just through industrial injuries: people who feel that they cannot proceed further because solicitors and the legal profession are not for them—that they cannot afford such advocacy, and that it is for the middle class rather than the working class. Those people should not have to come to me to challenge insurance companies that refuse to pay out, or house builders when houses fall down, or conveyancers when enormous subsidence holes suddenly appear in the middle of the garden and under the foundations. They should feel confident about going to solicitors to obtain legal remedy, but they do not feel comfortable about it. This debate is about expanding the market, and there is a market full of people with grievances who ought to be making a sensible, coherent, rational decision to use a solicitor, be it a large multinational, a one-man band or a small family company in a town. As for the location of the Office for Legal Complaints, there has been argument about whether it should be so near to Leamington Spa. I have no strong objection, but I do think it would be unwise to limit a body to one base by statute. If the miners’ scam were repeated, a base in Sheffield or Newcastle would make sense, pragmatically and in terms of cost. Hands should not be tied for the sake of ensuring that the organisation is up and running as soon as possible. I hope that the Office of the Legal Services Ombudsman will not suddenly disappear in the next few weeks or months, because its supervisory role has proved extremely valuable in the miners’ cases. Both its remit and its role need to be maintained: it should be both an overseeing body and what some might term a court of appeal. It should be a further resort if regulation and the complaints procedure have not worked, but it should also ensure that there is forward looking as well as retrospectivity when it comes to the regulatory regime. Enhanced powers are essential. Of the top three powers that are needed, the most important is a power to deal with the inability to keep confidential misconduct action taken against solicitors. Next on the list are explicit powers to enforce decisions, including those relating to the payment of compensation awards. Finally, the £20,000 compensation level is much too low. We also need to ensure that the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal is made to work, so that solicitors cannot play games of cat and mouse with people who are literally dying while they wait for justice.