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Compensation Bill [Lords]

I am reasonably certain that the hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire was more enthusiastic about that legislation than I was. One cannot escape the fact that trade unions are highly regulated. They are governed by specific laws, and there is a specific certification officer. Professional people are deemed to be regulated by their own professional organisations. The hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire announced proudly that he is a lawyer. Lawyers are regulated by the Law Society. It is worth pausing to consider how well it does that. To help us, we have the report from the legal services ombudsman for England and Wales—incidentally, there is no analogous report about the TUC—in which she examines how well the Law Society has done as a regulator of the legal profession in the most controversial area that we are discussing: the miners’ compensation cases. I do not have time to read out the whole document, but let me read some of the key findings. The ombudsman states:"““It became clear to me during my investigations that the Law Society had not put into practice their stated approach for dealing with these cases””—" that is, the miners’ compensation cases. She found that the Law Society had"““failed to obtain solicitors’ files or to ask them to provide relevant papers.””" It had"““failed to take account of the individual circumstances of each case…failed to adopt a neutral stance when seeking to conciliate the complaint””—" and—"““failed to put their conciliation proposals in writing to the miners’ authorised representatives””." What makes this a lot worse, from my point of view, is that those authorised representatives include Members of Parliament. To behave in a high-handed way towards Members of Parliament in respect of individual cases is completely and utterly unacceptable to me, and I think that I speak for a great many Members when I say so. The ombudsman goes on to say that the Law Society"““failed to consider whether solicitors should pay back in full the fees wrongly deducted from miners’ compensation settlements, and, in addition, compensate miners for any inadequate professional services identified.””" It had"““failed to examine a possible over-payment of the fee to the claims-handling agent…failed to examine the respective roles of solicitors and of the claims-handling agents in the processing of individual compensation claims and failed to examine the question of what advice, if any, solicitors had offered complainants about the claims-handling agents’ fees…failed to examine the relationship between solicitors and the claims-handling agents or to consider whether the relationship had resulted in a conflict of interest between their clients, the ""claims-handling agents and individual miners, or a conflict between the solicitors’ own interests and those of their clients””—" and—"““failed to consider whether solicitors may have acted in breach of the Solicitors’ Practice Rules…and in breach of the Solicitors’ Introduction and Referral Code””." In summary:"““In all the Law Society failed to properly investigate the miners’ complaints.””" The ombudsman gives a list of recommendations and says:"““As part of the reconsiderations the Law Society itself should consider paying compensation to the miners whose cases have been inadequately investigated by them.””" That is pretty damning stuff. I am sorry to have read out all the failures, but there are a lot of them. Although the Government are right not to want to regulate twice over—we want only one regulator; I do not quarrel with that approach—the regulation must be properly done. It is clear that in this case it was very inadequately done. It is not for me to set out what the reasons are, but it is for me to assert that it has to be put right. That means that miners must get the justice due to them, and that the lawyers who have taken money that they should not have taken must give it back. We as a House should assert that as a principle, and we look to the Minister to do whatever she can through the powers that her office has to ensure that matters are put right as quickly as possible.