Legal Services Bill [HL]

My Lords, I beg to move that the House do agree with the Commons in their Amendments Nos. 4B, 4C and 4D and do not insist on its Amendment No. 4A. Noble Lords will recall that, although the Commons had agreed to the Government’s amendments to Clause 15 that applied to trade unions, they were not accepted in your Lordships’ House. Your Lordships disagreed with those amendments and substituted different words that limited the exemption that trade unions had from the need to be regulated as entities. In our original wording, unions were to have been exempted in respect of any reserved legal services provided by virtue of membership. In the Lords amendment, the exemption applied only to what we might call a limited range of employment-related services. The Government looked very carefully at the tenor of the debate in this House and decided that we should accept, in spirit, this House’s desire to narrow the exemption. We acknowledged the strength of feeling about the subject and the concerns about the possibility of a reduced level of protection for union members when unions engage in services wholly unrelated to a member’s employment, trade, occupation or other membership-based activity. I think it would be right to say that, alongside that, no one has wanted to prevent unions continuing to provide legal services to their members in areas connected to their employment, trade, occupation or other membership-based activity. We believe that the services that unions provide are vital for access to justice and for industrial relations, but we certainly see the force in the argument that preserving that position does not require an absolute exemption for all kinds of legal services. On that basis, we have tabled amendments of our own which have a similar effect to those that were considered in the other place but which also ensure that services relating to trades, occupations or other activities that relate to a person’s union membership are also included. Moved, That the House do agree with the Commons in their Amendments Nos. 4B, 4C and 4D and do not insist on its Amendment No. 4A.—(Lord Hunt of Kings Heath.)