Clause 1
Legal Services Bill [Lords]
10:45 am
Jonathan Djanogly (Shadow Solicitor General (Also Shadow Minister for Trade and Industry), Law Officers (Assist the Home Affairs Team); Huntingdon, Conservative)
No doubt the hon. Gentleman will inform the Committee of the answer later.
At each stage before the Bill came to the House of Commons, it has been moved forwards and refined, whether by the Joint Committee, the Government or the Opposition, and it is in pretty good shape. However, the core Government amendments will regress the Bill. Most of the key Government amendments are wrecking ones, which is an unfortunate state of affairs affecting important issues of principle, some of which are of constitutional importance.
Let me move on to part 1, which contains the key clause dealing with the regulatory objectives of the Bill, and amendment No. 217, which is a probing amendment. We are proposing that the following words be inserted into clause 1(1)(e):
“subject to objectives (a) to (d)”.
That would ensure that the objective of promoting competition is expressly subordinate to the objectives of protecting and promoting the public interest, thereby supporting the constitutional principle of the rule of law, improving access to justice and protecting and promoting the interests of consumers.
Clause 1 sets out the eight regulatory objectives that the Legal Services Board, the approved regulators, and the Office for Legal Complaints will be under a duty to observe when exercising their functions. The Bill does not rank those objectives in order of importance. Although we agree that the regulatory objectives are all-important to the Bill, some are more significant than others: namely,
“protecting and promoting the public interest...supporting the constitutional principle of the rule of law...improving access to justice”
and
“protecting and promoting the interests of consumers”.
Those four objectives are the core aims of the Bill, dealing with the foundation issues from which others emerge, which is why we suggest that the specific objective of
“promoting competition in the provision of services”,
such as are provided by authorised persons, be subordinated to the other four, which are far more generic and wide ranging. Indeed, the aim of promoting competition in the provision of services would mean lower prices and better services for consumers. To that extent, it falls under one of the four principal objectives, to which it should be subject, namely that of
“protecting and promoting the interests of consumers”,
as stated in paragraph (d).