Legal Services Bill [Lords]

I thank both Opposition parties for the support that they have broadly given to the Bill. I thank all those hon. Members who have contributed to a good if polarised debate. One could say that people either love lawyers or they hate them, but I sometimes think that people either are one or they hate them, and that is the way the world goes. Since the principles are broadly agreed—I hope that I do not claim too much in that—there is much more to be done in Committee than in this closing speech. So I hope that no one will take offence if I propose to take new points and then only to address the amendments that have been discussed. I know that the hon. Members for North-East Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald) and for Huntingdon (Mr. Djanogly) will not be offended if I wrap up their comments in dealing with the amendments. However, for the benefit of the hon. Member for Huntingdon, I can say that the calendar about which he specifically asked has not changed since my noble Friend Baroness Ashton set it out. It is likely that 2011 will be the right date, but of course legal disciplinary partnerships, as opposed to multidisciplinary partnerships, will be available from the time of Royal Assent. I hope that the distinction is clear. The hon. Gentleman was wrong to say that there would be no burden on the public purse. The Ministry of Justice has said clearly that it will pay at least £2.4 million for the set-up costs of the new complaints system. Let me deal with the new points that were made. My hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Mr. Kidney), a man of considerable perspicacity, raised the question of the solicitors regulatory authority’s wish to fine and publish rebukes. Schedule 22 will allow such an amendment to existing legislation during the transition period. We accept in principle that that should be available and we hope to deal with that matter during the Bill’s passage. My hon. Friend and the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr. Burrowes), who is in the Chamber, referred to the costs of the system. I have already said that the Ministry of Justice will pay £2.4 million. The set-up costs will be phased, rather than chargeable all at once. There is the question of whether this is fair. I understand that when the new regime is brought together, it will cost less overall than the existing system. Professionals, in addition to getting a bargain, will get the benefit of the consumer confidence that comes from a good complaints system, the opposite of which has been discussed today. There will thus probably be a double bargain. The hon. Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes) talked about will writers, as did the hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire. As yet, there is no evidence that we need to regulate them. Clause 24 will allow the legal services board to recommend to the Lord Chancellor that there should be more broad regulation. If that proves to be necessary, it can be introduced. The hon. Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey also talked about vexatious litigants. Following my intervention, I was glad that he agreed that it should be sufficient for the LSB to have the discretion to decide in such a case whether the victim solicitor should pay the costs. We agree that that is the right way forward and we will reverse the amendment made in the other place that would put an absolute bar on orders for costs from being put forward in some cases. Such a provision is utterly unnecessary and over-rigid. The hon. Gentleman and the hon. Member for Huntingdon raised the question of appeals. This is a matter of judicial review. We think that the whole process must go through a firm’s practices before it even gets to the Office for Legal Complaints. There must be a way to end complaints at some point, so judicial review it is. My hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich, West (Mr. Bailey) talked interestingly about a meeting regarding the Carter proposals that was full of lawyers, saying that the most important issue in his constituency was the absence of legal aid. I got an impression of the tone of that meeting—I have been there—and it was not atypical. Having withstood that meeting, it is a great tribute to my hon. Friend that his welcome to the Bill was carefully thought through and balanced. We heard a typical piece of fair mindedness from him. My hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) was right that lawyers must speak in the House about issues that concern them and their livelihoods. He must speak, as he does powerfully, for the working-class lay people whom he and I represent. His idea of a permanent lay chair of the LSB was interesting. However, an interesting point of debate is the question of whether we should fix that for ever, or just establish the culture of the body by ensuring that its first chair is a lay person. The Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, East (Bridget Prentice), would not mind at all if my hon. Friends the Members for Bassetlaw and for North Durham (Mr. Jones) were members of the Public Bill Committee. I am sure that they would not want the Committee to sit until Christmas, but they would be very welcome. Let me say briefly to my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw that poorer people sometimes have a better guarantee of quality from lawyers than richer people. If people are on legal aid, the Legal Services Commission, which contracts with them, has powers. For example, the commission can issue a specialist quality mark which people need to carry out certain legal aid work. It also has a system of peer review. That system involves other lawyers reviewing the way in which people conduct their business, so I admit that it might not be perfection incarnate, but it is a pretty potent tool that guarantees some quality. When a person is outside legal aid, none of those mechanisms are available. In addition, for complex cases, case management is available on legal aid through the LSC, so lawyers cannot send a case on legal aid to an expert who is not needed. Standard cases are carried out for a fixed fee, so there is nothing to be gained by prolonging a case unnecessarily in the way in which his constituents have experienced. My hon. Friend dealt pretty effectively with Liberal Democrat Members’ cosy point that local solicitors are universally good and always act in the interests of their communities. Sometimes that is the case, but small firms must not be preferred at all costs. Such firms are not universally bad either, but they cannot possibly have the range of expertise that is needed in this modern world. Larger community legal advice networks are essential, whether they are actual or virtual. Firms in the not-for-profit sector can work together through such networks to ensure that the poor using legal aid can go through one door for advice, rather than going to the only firm available—although it knows nothing about debt because it spends its life conveyancing and dealing with crime—and thus getting let down. Such a system also means that people do not need to work out what kind of advice they need so that they can decide where to go. If they have a community legal advice network or centre, they can walk through a door and just ask. I was privileged to open the first community legal advice centre about a week ago in Gateshead. I ask all hon. Members in the Chamber to request that their local authorities enter at once into negotiations with the LSC so that the local authority cash that is available for welfare advice and our cash from the LSC that is available for legal advice can be pooled, to ensure that people who need good legal advice can literally walk through a door of a community legal advice centre and just ask for it. My last point about the speech made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw is that the lawyers complaints system has got significantly better, as even my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham said. If the hon. Member for North-West Cambridgeshire (Mr. Vara) thinks that measures that say that alternative business structures should not be introduced until endless research has been completed, and which would delegate the power of the office for legal complaints back to the Bar Standards Board, are not wrecking amendments, I am afraid that he is a lost cause. The hon. Member for Angus (Mr. Weir) rightly perceived that he would need to get some correspondence from me in connection with the points raised his speech. However, he asked a specific question that I can answer. If an ABS body operates in England and Scotland, it will have to comply with each jurisdiction’s regulatory rules, unless the rules apply to where the work is being done. If alternative business structures are not permitted in a jurisdiction, a firm will have to create a different entity to work there. The hon. Gentleman asked about the crossover of regulators when multidisciplinary partnerships come into being. The LSB will regulate the economic entity that supplies the legal services, while individuals from different professionals will remain regulated by their profession. My hon. Friend the Member for North Durham champions outstandingly his hard pressed, ill treated, often suffering miner constituents. He makes powerful points but essentially says that the amendments made in the other place weaken the Bill. We agree, and we will not accept them. The question of appointments has taken a lot of airspace tonight. To speak as the hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire did of Government controlling lawyers or the Lord Chancellor appointing his friends is silly. Of course the Nolan principles apply, as he knows very well. Appointments will be made in accordance with best practice and they will be scrutinised by the Office of the Commissioner for Public Appointments. The appointments will therefore be made on merit, independently scrutinised by the OCPA and subject to equal opportunities requirements and to the test of probity. That method of ministerial appointment is the norm for all public appointments. There is no reason to distinguish between appointments made in connection with the Bill and any others.