Clause 3
Compensation Bill [Lords]
1:30 pm
Simon Hughes (Shadow Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs & Shadow Attorney General, Constitutional Affairs; North Southwark and Bermondsey, Liberal Democrat)
I shall try to keep my intervention to two sentences. The answer to the question put to the hon. Gentleman is that the first stage is that people get free advice over the phone—that advice is not regulated and is given by a law graduate—and they are then passed on to a solicitor who is regulated in the same way as every other solicitor. That is how the National Accident Helpline works. The measure would regulate it from the beginning of the process and not from the second stage. [Interruption.] No, the first stage is free.