Clause 91
Legal Services Bill [Lords]
1:15 pm
Simon Hughes (Party President, Cross-Portfolio and Non-Portfolio Responsibilities; North Southwark and Bermondsey, Liberal Democrat)
The clause sets up one of two new posts in licensed bodies—head of legal practice—and sets out the duties of the post holder. Clause 92 sets up the other new post, head of finance and administration. Both posts are self-explanatory, and it is clearly important that those responsibilities are divided. I can see the argument for that.
Schedule 11 is the other side of the coin. Part 2 of the schedule sets out “structural requirements” for the management of the organisations, including requirements for general management and for the heads of legal practice and of finance and administration. The schedule gives criteria for who is a “fit and proper person” to be head of legal practice, and I should like to ask the Minister a question about that from a lay perspective.
Each organisation will have a head of legal practice, who must be a lawyer in one of the authorised activities, so they could not be a lay person. They will take responsibility for all legal activity. Is it envisaged—this is not clear in the Bill—that the decision on the appropriateness of the organisation will be taken on the basis of the organisation as a whole, without considering who is its head of legal practice, or will it be a bit like the application for a licence currently made to a local authority and traditionally to a magistrates court whereby it is the prospective licensee whose fitness and propriety are considered? It is not sufficient to say that the Whitbread brewery owns a pub; it must ensure that the pub’s tenant is fit and proper. Both are material considerations. To give an example, there are some rogue business people with an extremely bad reputation for ripping people off and not having the public interest at heart. A Mr. van Hoogstraten comes to mind in that category.