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)
He is certainly not. I sincerely hope for everyone’s sake that he is not a member of any party represented in this room. He has a terrible business reputation for being an exploitative landlord, but there is nothing to prevent him or one of his companies from applying to join a licensed body. The head of legal services might have worked for somebody like that for one, 10 or 20 years, passed their exams and qualified as a lawyer. I am keen to know what the test will be when the licensing authority decides whether to grant the licence.
Will there effectively be two tests—is the organisation considered legally and financially competent, and are the two people put up as heads of legal practice and finance and administration regarded as fit and proper? Finally, when the time comes and the procedures in the Bill are established for those tests, if the head of legal practice is replaced and someone else is nominated, is it expected that the licensing process should start in good time, so that, if someone else is nominated, there would be an opportunity for the licensing authority to say, “No, they are absolutely not satisfactory, and they are not a fit and proper person. We do not think that they have the experience, and we do not know enough about them, so unless and until you produce some different people, we will not continue to license you as an organisation”? It is in the consumer’s interest that both tests should be passed, and that both organisations and individuals are passed as being fit for purpose. I am keen to know that both tests should be passed in advance, before any green light is given by the licensing authority to the organisation, so that the licensing authority can do its job under the legislation.