Legal Services Bill [HL]

My Lords, I was not intending to intervene in this debate because, as veterans of the debate will know, it got a bit heated the last time. I do not intend to raise the temperature too much but, having seen the support for the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Neill, I am a bit surprised. I had assumed that the amendment carried in the Commons was a reasonable and workable compromise, as my noble friend Lord Bach explained. If it is not an acceptable compromise, I have to register an alternative point of view. I opposed any specific reference to the Lord Chief Justice on the grounds that to the consumer of legal services that would appear not to be independent. In other words, the independence of the board is at stake here, rather than the independence of the profession. I do not think that any method of appointment is a threat to the independence of the profession. Therefore, with some unease, I have been prepared to accept the Commons amendment that specifically refers to the Lord Chief Justice being consulted—and I am grateful to the Minister for explaining how that works. If you substitute concurrence, as the Minister implied, you automatically raise the possibility of a veto, which undermines the credibility of the board to the general public and the consumers of the services of the legal profession. If I did not do so at the beginning, I declare my interest as chair of the National Consumer Council. I am surprised at the noble Lord, Lord Neill, who has done so much to establish the public appointments system as a credible, defensible and independent way in which to get public appointments. In this context—in the one situation in which he and other noble Lords who supported his amendment suggest that the regulation of the legal profession does not apply—we institute a special equivalent role giving concurrence to the Lord Chief Justice. That is not defensible; it would not give any credibility to this approach and it might well undermine credibility in the eyes of those people who want to see the Bill as a way in which to improve legal services and the performance of the profession. I am sorry to introduce a slightly discordant note on this but, if the Minister is going to reply, he needs to understand that there are those of us who recognise that this is a compromise. It is a compromise from my position and I hope that those who took the equivalent opposite view would recognise that the Commons has presented us with a compromise position, which I believe to be workable.