Legal Services Bill [HL]

My Lords, I rise to support the amendment. There are only two ways in which a body asked to overrule a decision of a lower body can act. It can say either, ““Well, I wouldn’t have done that so we will change the decision””, or, ““That was not a reasonable decision to make and therefore we will overrule it””. The noble Lord, Lord Borrie, says that in an exceptional situation the body can say that although the decision was reasonable it will overrule it. But if the situation was exceptional and the other body has come to an unacceptable decision, the decision was not in fact reasonable, however much it thought that it was. The example that the Minister gave is just not a real example. He said that the bodies might have two alternative views and that either might be reasonable—but then he said that the view arrived at would have very adverse consequences. If the view taken is going to have adverse consequences, it was not a reasonable view; if the body has not taken those adverse consequences into account properly, it has not come to a reasonable decision. There are no compromises in the middle. Unless the body is not going simply to say, ““That is not what we would have done and therefore we will do something different””, the amendment must be right.