Lord Neill of Bladen: moved Amendment No. 157ZA: Clause 201 , page 110, line 27, at end insert "provided always that no order may be made by the Secretary of State bringing into force Part 5 of this Act and the related Schedules 10 to 14 until after— (a) consideration by both Houses of Parliament of a comprehensive report to be commissioned by the Lord Chancellor from an independent source analysing—(i) the...
Lord Neill of Bladen: I move the amendment because of the anxiety that I have come to feel about how we have been dealing with Part 5. To put it briefly, we do not have material evidence on certain key features in relation to Part 5. On one view, you could say that we are really transferring our legislative role to the Legal Services Board and all the licensing authorities; we are just handing it all over to them....
Lord Neill of Bladen: I support what has just been said by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and the noble Lord, Lord Borrie. Two Inns have now been covered. I represent a third Inn and I declare that I am a practising barrister called to the Bar by Gray's Inn where in my time I had the honour to be the Treasurer. I confirm what they say about the teaching role of the Inns and very much hope that...
Lord Neill of Bladen: My problem with what the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, has just said is that we then introduce a stark differentiation between the two schemes. The FOS scheme goes up to £100,000 and it is quite admittedly an alternative and parallel system to that of the courts. Why has it been put in place? It is because of the horrific nature of the costs in civil litigation. If you lose an action...
Lord Neill of Bladen: Perhaps I may add a word to this debate. I was interested to hear of the noble Lord's visit to Scotland to find a precedent. This is in the financial ombudsman's scheme already. The rules made by the ombudsman, with the approval of the FSA, have exactly this language. Rule 3.8.1(1), as no doubt the noble Baroness knows, says: "In considering what is fair and reasonable in all the...
Lord Neill of Bladen: I too was deeply disturbed by the explanation of the noble Baroness. At least twice she spoke of matters getting to the OLC because they had not been dealt with properly in-house. A lot of us say we ought to cash that language. What does "has not been dealt with properly in-house" mean? That would include not caving in and being blackmailed. She shakes her head and looks surprised. On the...
Lord Neill of Bladen: With regard to the language, I think that the financial services provision does not have identical language about a contribution to the costs of dealing with the complaint. I think that the order can be made in favour of the other party if there has been unreasonable conduct. As this is rather special, will the Minister look at that and compare the two texts?
Lord Neill of Bladen: I agree with the three previous speakers. In effect, this is a punishment for being an innocent defendant. It is a totally untenable proposition. You have your property confiscated and are ordered to pay charges because someone has brought an unfounded complaint against you. As a legal proposition that seems to be absolutely impossible. I am very surprised that there are no Human Rights Act...
Lord Neill of Bladen: I agree with the view of the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss. If I follow the argument correctly, the premise for the making of an award of costs against a complainant would be that the ombudsman had formed an opinion, under either subsections (1) or (2), that the complainant had acted improperly or unreasonably in relation to the complaint, or had been responsible for an...
Lord Neill of Bladen: In considering the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, on its own, my only concern in this area is whether there is any suggestion that there might be intervention in a particular ongoing complaint that is being adjudicated. In other words, could the OLC be told what decision it is to arrive at, or is this all intended to operate ex post? You have a decision, maybe half a dozen...
Lord Neill of Bladen: I disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland. He seems to base his proposition on the unstated assumption that all complaints brought to the complaints body will be brought by rational and fair-minded consumers with a strong case. I have had some experience in dealing with legal complaints as a head of chambers. I assure him that, if he believes that about complaining consumers, he is...
Lord Neill of Bladen: The Minister talked about investors. We had some discussion about who will want to put their money into an experiment that will last, say, five years. That is a real consideration. Are we losing sight of the consumer? We have heard from the noble Lord, Lord Thomas, and others that one factor in the relationship between a client and his or her solicitor is that it is continuing. It would be...
Lord Neill of Bladen: Perhaps the quotation that the noble Lord had in mind from my noble and learned friend Lord Woolf is: "There is no doubt that large businesses could provide legal services in a novel and interesting way. But that could—unintentionally, perhaps—have a devastating effect on those who have traditionally provided services in rural areas in particular. Great care has to be exercised to see...
Lord Neill of Bladen: I too support the amendment. Your Lordships may recall that I was a member of the Joint Committee serving under the noble Lord, Lord Hunt. One aspect in the evidence that worried us a lot was that the provision of legal services in a new way and by new entrants, as it were, could damage existing firms. I was not able to be here on the last occasion we discussed this, but the noble Lord, Lord...
Lord Neill of Bladen: I find that I nearly always agree with everything that the noble Lord, Lord Borrie, says, but today is an exception. He is missing some of the politics, with a small "p", here. One of the motivating forces driving this Bill, to which the Government have responded, seems to me, based on the evidence that we heard in the Joint Committee, to be the consumer interests. They have been...
Lord Neill of Bladen: I recognise these words, which are familiar from the memorandum of association of limited companies; they have been pretty standard for 100 to 150 years. There is a lot of case law about what they do or do not permit. I suggest that one of the Minister's team might have a look at that.
Lord Neill of Bladen: I am a simple seeker of the truth. What the letter claims is that some or all of the 450,000 people are giving advice to the public. Some are paid to do so, others are voluntary, and they are not working in law firms. That, as I understand it, is the claim.
Lord Neill of Bladen: As always, I declare my interests: I am a practising barrister and a former chairman of the Bar, and I was on the Joint Committee that looked at the Bill. At the weekend, I was surprised to receive a letter from the Institute of Paralegals, a body that I do not think I had heard of before. The extremely informative letter states that there are 500,000 paralegals and that 50,000 of them serve...
Lord Neill of Bladen: At Second Reading, I said that it would be a nice idea to get the concept of "light touch" into the Bill. I think that I expressed my feelings about my own incompetence as regards how that could possibly be done. It seems to me that this is about as good a shot as you can have at expressing "light touch". There may be a slight difficulty with the words, "must, so far as is reasonably...
Lord Neill of Bladen: Can the Minister clarify what she has just now said twice, about independence not being on the face of the Bill but somewhere else? The place where you would expect to find independence being protected, with this new framework being created, is in the Bill itself, so that readers could see it was there. Anything that is not in the Bill does not carry the will of Parliament.
