Clause 12
Legal Services Bill [Lords]
2:15 pm
Bridget Prentice (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Ministry of Justice; Lewisham East, Labour)
The hon. Gentleman makes a fair point.
The hon. Member for North-West Norfolk mentioned will writers’ organisations. The amendment would mean that, as a reserved activity, will writing could be done only with the proper authorisation and approval of regulators such as the Law Society. If it wanted to authorise and regulate the supply of such services, the organisations that represent will writers—the Society of Will Writers and Estate Planning Practitioners and the Institute of Professional Willwriters—would need the approval of a regulator. That is technically possible, but it would mean that the representative bodies would be brought under, for example, the Law Society’s regulatory activities.
The hon. Member for Huntingdon asked what discussions I have had with the professions. Last year, there was an event involving the Law Society, the Institute of Professional Willwriters, the Society of Will Writers and Estate Planning Practitioners and some of the consumer organisations. It was accepted that, although there is currently no statutory regulation of will writing, the Legal Services Board will be able to recommend that the Secretary of State bring it under such regulation.
That event was followed in May last year by another that was hosted by the Office of Fair Trading and the DCA, which was attended by the same organisations. The possibility of enabling people to apply to the OFT under its voluntary code scheme was suggested. For the sake of the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate, I shall outline what the scheme does. Obviously, it is not as strict as statutory regulation, which reflects the fact that different types of work need different types of regulation. The scheme aims to safeguard consumer interests by helping them to identify businesses that have a higher standard of customer care. By signing up to the approved code, a trader has agreed to provide the consumer with the benefits outlined in the code, which include clear pre-sale information—I know that, like me, the hon. Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey has advocated that at length—fair contracts and access to independent redress mechanisms. Those are the key issues that were identified in improving will-writing services. The code offers higher levels of consumer service than are required at present. The organisations are considering whether to take it on board, although I understand that many are waiting for the Bill to achieve Royal Assent before they go any further.
It is for those reasons that, much as I appreciate the examples that have been given, I cannot ask the Committee to accept the amendments. This would be an ideal issue for the consumer panel to consider and, if it felt that there was some systematic failure, to make recommendations to the Legal Services Board. I cannot in all honesty recommend that we accept it today, because we have no concrete evidence of sucha failure, so I ask the Committee to reject the amendments.