Legal Services Bill [HL]

My Lords, we have from these Benches supported the noble Lord, Lord Neill of Bladen, in his amendment on two occasions. The matter has now come back to us for a third time. I have no doubt that when the Minister comes to speak, he will draw our attention to the fact that both the Joint Committee and the original report drafted by Sir David Clementi were content with consultation and did not require concurrence. However, between then and now, there has been one very important constitutional change: that is, the sending of the Chancellor from your Lordships' House to another place. The Lord Chancellor is now an elected politician, subject to party discipline, and may one day—I make no adverse observations about the present incumbent—find the influence of politics stronger than the influence of justice. Indeed, there are important questions to be asked about the suitability of a policy ministry, such as the Ministry of Justice, having responsibility for judicial matters. However, that is a debate for another day. As a result of this important constitutional change, we became more enamoured of the terms of the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Neill of Bladen. Originally, the Government were simply not prepared to accept even consultation; the decision was to be made by the Lord Chancellor alone. But their position shifted in another place, and the Government began to spell out what they meant by consultation. The matter came back to your Lordships' House and we sent it back, robustly, again. The Minister in another place, Bridget Prentice, has now been a great deal more explicit about what is meant by consultation. Many view the inclusion under Schedule 1 of the requirement for the Lord Chief Justice to be consulted on the process as well as the name of the members of the Legal Services Board as very helpful. The noble Lord, Lord Neill of Bladen, by contrast, has drawn to our attention the fact that, in a sense, concurrence respects much more what the Government told us they were aiming at in their judicial reforms two years ago than consultation. This is because the process of consultation enmeshes the Lord Chief Justice in the political process. I take that to be the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Neill of Bladen. That should give us cause for hesitation if we are going to vote for the Government on this matter today. However, for my part, the Government have responded in the direction to which they have been drawn by those who have contributed to debates both in another place and here. I still prefer the drafting of the noble Lord, Lord Neill of Bladen. I believe that there are great dangers in establishing, on the one hand, an independent judiciary with a process that is plainly separate from the political process but not taking the same approach to the membership of the organisation that will oversee the legal profession. It is constitutionally dangerous because, as I have had the opportunity to say on a number of occasions, one cannot have an independent judiciary unless one has an independent legal profession: and, indeed, vice versa. I hope that the Government will bear that in mind under their new procedures. I assure them that we will watch them very carefully. I would like to have voted for the noble Lord, Lord Neill, again; but the constitutional position of your Lordships’ House in relation to the Commons on this is clear. There are times when we will go right to the end in exercising our rights in the parliamentary procedure; but I say, to some extent with a heavy heart, that this is not one of those occasions.