Clause 15
Legal Services Bill [Lords]
11:30 am
Bridget Prentice (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Ministry of Justice; Lewisham East, Labour)
I cannot give the hon. Gentleman an example off the top of my head, but I will write to him, if that is acceptable.
I would like to return to the suggestions made by the hon. Member for Huntingdon. I think that his next point was that the certification officer was not a proper substitute for regulation through an approved regulator. I agree with him on that point; that is true. We have never pretended that a certification officer was a substitute for an approved regulator.
The certification office has a limited role. It cannot always take action in the way that an approved regulator could. None the less, if problems over the provision of services amount to a breach of the union’s rule book, that breach can be dealt with and taken to the certification office if necessary. Also, as hon. Members on both sides of the Committee have pointed out, union members obviously retain the option to go to court themselves.