Probate Services (Approved Bodies) Order 2009

I also express my gratitude to the Minister for introducing this order. We have been through this mill before in relation to the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland and the Council for Licensed Conveyancers, and I am very interested to note how little take-up there has been. As I understand it, there has been nil take-up from the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland. Presumably they have found that it is not possible to make any money out of it. Only 18 certificates have been issued by the Council for Licensed Conveyancers. I would like the Minister to spell out in detail, if he can, how the licences which have been granted are monitored. I do not think that such schemes should be monitored only at the beginning of their introduction, nor should it be for the consumer or client to have to raise matters by way of complaint. There should be a way in which the Ministry of Justice carries out some oversight of how the system is working. It is an extremely vulnerable area, of course. People who go to solicitors with probate papers seeking probate are generally the bereaved family, who are at a very delicate time. They have no way of knowing that they can trust the solicitor unless there has been a lengthy solicitor-client relationship over a period of time. I think that the public generally rely on the good reputation of the legal profession, but that does not always help. I can give one instance of a solicitor who was dealing with a will in which the Polish community was the residuary beneficiary. Having paid out substantial sums to clients, he failed for 12 years to pay the residuary beneficiary, the Polish organisation that looks after the Polish community in London. It was only when the police became involved that it was discovered what had happened. That, of course, leads to the very important question of compensation. The conditions for anyone wishing to practise in the probate field in the organisation which we are concerned with in this case are actually quite large hurdles to get over. They have to ensure that there is proper training. They have to ensure that there is a compensation scheme that must be no less than the compensation scheme that applies to solicitors. It would be quite wrong for there to be any competitive advantage by those seeking work in this field who are not solicitors in having to pay less in premiums and so on. All these things require considerable oversight, as I said. It is not enough to make this field of potentially difficult legal work open to all without a proper consideration of how the consumer can be best protected. Having said that, I raise no further objections to the order going forward. I simply require assurances on the safety of the provisions for consumers.