Legal Services Bill [Lords]

To varying degrees, there is support on both sides of the House for an exemption for trade unions. I was pleased to see the movement, which Hansard will accurately record, in the speech made by the hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Djanogly). That movement is welcome. I wish not to repeat the informed comments made in the debate, but merely to pick up on the one inaccuracy in it—an inaccuracy also trailed in The Times today. Presumably to try to create a basis for suggesting that there needs to be a vote, when clearly there need not be, the hon. Gentleman attempts to jump on the coat tails of the scandal of double-charging solicitors and miners' compensation. To make the record clear and assist in the hon. Gentleman's and the House's understanding of the matter, I should say that the four unions that benefited from the double-charging have all done so via solicitors. None has done so through any other mechanisms, except the Union of Democratic Mineworkers, which has used a claims-handling company called Vendside Ltd. That company is not and never could be regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority under any of the options before us. Justice will be done only through legal action in the civil courts. I feel confident that a large number of retired miners and miners' widows will seek a remedy through the civil courts. If there is a weakness, it is in the claims-handling regulator's apparent lack of teeth in dealing with such claims handlers. However, when it comes to those who have gone through solicitors, the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal and its misconduct hearings in the next four weeks demonstrate not only that there is regulation through the Law Society, but that that regulation is effective. Later this month, the first of the UDM solicitors will be in front of the tribunal on misconduct charges. Wake Smith and Beresford's solicitors both go this month, and a series of others will follow them. In November, the solicitors for the Yorkshire NUM, Raley's, which, the House may recall, double charged not only miners but their widows, against the rulebook, will go in front of the disciplinary tribunal. People using the existing systems have been able to get their money back and, when their solicitors have fought, have got compensation on top. There are many more to go. Just this weekend, I discovered that a management union called the Colliery Officials and Staff Association had been using a solicitors firm called Browells. I have had no cause to take issue with the firm until now; it was collecting 4 per cent. for COSA from one of my constituents. It is not entitled to do so. The remedy is straightforward. That cosy relationship has been exposed. If parts of the NUM, the UDM or COSA, via Browells, and if the National Association of Colliery Overmen, Deputies and Shotfirers in south Wales—one of the unions that has profited most via its solicitors—choose to profit through their solicitors, the remedies exist. It is disingenuous for the hon. Member for Huntingdon to throw such issues into the debate when he knows full well that they have nothing to do with it. I suggest that in future he should stick to the facts instead of embellishing his case in a most unbecoming manner.