Schedule 1
Legal Services Bill [Lords]
6:30 pm
Simon Hughes (Party President, Cross-Portfolio and Non-Portfolio Responsibilities; North Southwark and Bermondsey, Liberal Democrat)
I have four questions for the Minister about schedule 1. First, what are the Government estimates of the cost of the legal services board in each of its first three years; what is the best estimate of what it will cost the taxpayer or, if it is split, the contributors? Secondly, what is the best estimate that the Government can give us of the numbers of board members plus staff? How big an organisation will it be in terms of minimum and maximum numbers of people. Thirdly, we had a long discussion earlier about who will chair the board. I am not one of those people who is obsessed about this, but considering we have given up using sexist language, why is it used in the Bill, which refers to the chairman all the way through? I know that the parliamentary draftspeople no doubt work from the principle that male stands for male and female, but surely, in 2007, we should have moved on from that. I make a plea that we might be groundbreaking by having non-gender specific language. Fourthly, paragraph 27(2) of schedule 1, which is on page 126, states that in relation to
“Part 2 of Schedule 1 to the Northern Ireland Assembly Disqualification Act 1975”
the legal services board will be excluded. That means that someone cannot be on the board if they are a member of the Northern Ireland Assembly. So, if someone were appointed to the legal services board, they would have to stand down, as is the case with all the other offices of profit under the Crown. Given that this is an England and Wales Bill and not a Northern Ireland Bill, why does it not apply to Scotland, the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly? I do not understand why Northern Ireland has uniquely been referred to, given it is not a Northern Ireland Bill, yet Scotland has not been mentioned.