Legal Services Bill [Lords]

The hon. Gentleman said in his earlier contribution that the proposal was somehow an attack on the fundamental independence of the law, and he refused to answer the question that my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw and I put to him in that regard. The current body has a lot more powers—to fine, for example—than the legal services board will have, and the ombudsman is appointed by the Lord Chancellor, not the Lord Chief Justice. I am clear that the board must be independent, and be seen to be independent, if it is to have the credibility and teeth that it needs. I would like to make one or two other points about the detail of the Bill. I want the legal services board to have more teeth, in terms of the fines that it can impose on solicitors firms. The figure proposed in the Bill is £20,000, but that is nowhere near enough, and I shall give an example that shows why. A woman, whom I shall call Mrs. X, from Stanley in my constituency, came to see me before Christmas. She had the misfortune of having gone to the law firm Mark Gilbert Morse. She was pursuing a miners’ compensation case on behalf of her husband, and Mark Gilbert Morse was given a settlement figure of £42,000 for that case by the Department of Trade and Industry. The solicitors rejected it on her behalf, without even telling her. Lo and behold, some six months later they came back with an offer of some £23,000. Under the Bill, the maximum compensation figure for that case would be £20,000. Here, I give credit to the Legal Complaints Service. Thanks to the shame that was felt, and how appalled the service was by this case, Mark Gilbert Morse paid the £42,000 that had originally been offered. If the new body is to have teeth, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw said, it must be able to hit solicitors where it hurts—in the monetary award. Another issue that I am concerned about, and which needs to be examined, is the idea of forcing claimants to pay costs for frivolous and vexatious cases. This is a complete red herring, and I resist at all points the idea that anyone should be discouraged from bringing a case forward for fear of a compensation award against them. The hon. Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey said that that would not happen. Unfortunately, it does happen, and people will not come forward if they feel that costs will be awarded against them. In my experience, even the most brazen solicitors who have been taking money left, right and centre will use every means possible to frighten victims into withdrawing their complaint. To judge by my experience to date of the Legal Complaints Service, any complaint that is clearly frivolous and vexatious never gets off the ground. It is for the service to fillet out cases in which there is no case to answer, and that should not involve a threat against the individuals involved, because that would act as a disincentive to their coming forward. The miners’ compensation cases show that, as even the Legal Complaints Service recognises, we have merely touched the tip of the iceberg of this issue. Many people simply do not know that they have a complaint. They are in awe of solicitors. They sign a piece of paper, and having done so, they think that they are legally obliged to pay the amount in question. As a result, they are not coming forward with complaints.