Clause 15
Legal Services Bill [Lords]
11:00 am
Bridget Prentice (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Ministry of Justice; Lewisham East, Labour)
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for reminding me of that. Perhaps the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate is part of the cuddly side of the Conservative party, which wants to embrace trade unions, so we should forgive him.
I will come on to other organisations in a moment, but I first want to go through some of the issues that were raised in Thursday’s debate. We never intended that trade unions should be caught by the full ABS framework—they fell within it because of their ownership structure—but the regulatory issues that they raise are different from those raised by commercial bodies offering services to the public. In that sense, there is a difference between trade unions and some of the other organisations that have been mentioned today.
We have been asked why we did not propose the amendments earlier. My right hon. and learned friend the Lord Chancellor set out our intentions on Second Reading in December. Although the provisions in the Bill at that time went some way towards achieving the intended result, the TUC did not think that we would achieve it and the Law Society had some reservations. We held discussions at length with both parties. Sadly, that took longer than we might have hoped. The time that it takes to get to where we want to get to is one of the most dispiriting things about Government. I apologise to hon. Members if they have not had as long to peruse the amendments as they might have liked.