Legal Services Bill [Lords]

With all due respect, I am not sure that that is the case. A judicial review can only take place on the basis of a body having misdirected itself—that would be the basis in administrative law. In any case, the Minister can probably deal with the matter by stating what she believes the position to be on the admissibility or otherwise of an application for judicial review of a decision. It certainly should not be seen as a court of appeal on a decision of the regulator. That would be entirely inappropriate—on that, I agree with the hon. Members for Bassetlaw and for North Durham. On leaving out"““so far as is reasonably practicable””," I entirely agree with the hon. Member for North-West Norfolk. It seems to be an entirely unnecessary qualification. If we have good principles of regulation, which the Government have stressed in relation to the regulatory objectives, it is entirely perverse to qualify that by saying that the objectives do not have to be met if circumstances do not allow. The regulatory objectives must be consistent and paramount. I believe that the words should be removed, which is why I have put my name to amendment No. 2. Far from reducing the effectiveness of this part of the Bill, I believe that the amendment would strengthen it. On conflict of interest, I shall be interested to hear what the Minister has to say on whether the provisions represent a significant change from her understanding of the position. I am not prepared to countenance a conflict of interest arising, but if she is confident that the Bill's structure and wording is sufficient to deal with the issue, without us adding an explicit statement on conflict of interest, I shall be satisfied. I find it hard to believe that that is the case, however, so I have sympathy with what the hon. Member for North-West Norfolk has to say. My last point is on proportionality. The hon. Member for North-West Norfolk moved new clause 2, but I have taken a slightly different approach to the issue in my amendment No. 144. I mention it briefly in the forlorn hope of ensuring a degree of joined-up government as regards statute, and in the hope that one statute that we pass might have some relevance to another. Some hon. Members will recall the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act 2006, which had a chequered parliamentary career. Many of its provisions were hard-fought-for. It ended up being absolutely filleted in another place, and replaced with something a good deal better. Section 2 of that Act explicitly spelled out the regulatory principles—not the regulatory objectives, which are set out in the Bill before us—that were expected to apply to any regulatory body. It states:"““Those principles are that—""(a) regulatory activities should be carried out in a way which is transparent, accountable, proportionate and consistent;""(b) regulatory activities should be targeted only at cases in which action is needed.””" Those two regulatory principles, which the Government have accepted, and which they wrote in to the 2006 Act, are exactly what is required to qualify the regulatory objectives in the Bill so as to ensure proportionality and transparency, and to ensure that action is taken only when it is needed. The Minister should consider amendment No. 144, or perhaps a variation of it in which the cross-reference to the 2006 Act is removed, and those same regulatory principles inserted instead. That would underline what I believe to be the Government's objective—to have a consistent principle underlying regulatory activities that applies as much to lawyers as to other professions, and to all other regulatory activities. Members' objective should be to ensure a consistency of legislation that crosses those professional and interest boundaries. That is exactly the point made by the hon. Member for Bassetlaw, who argues that lawyers should not be a special case. I agree; in both positive and negative terms, the same principles should apply to regulatory activities across the board.