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Compensation Bill [HL]

My Lords, I am very grateful for those comments. I shall take a moment to inform noble Lords about what we have been doing; the question of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, gives me an opportunity to do so. Noble Lords who participated in the passage of this Bill were keen to see us get on with it and I made commitments about timing. We will come back to Parliament in the autumn to debate secondary legislation that will underpin the new regime. We have made good progress and have recently launched a formal consultation on the draft secondary legislation and conduct rules, which will include regional consultation workshops with claims intermediaries in Newcastle, Manchester and London. These set out in detail matters such as the authorisation criteria, the complaints handling requirements, indemnity insurance and situations in which it would be appropriate to cancel or suspend authorisation. In the next few weeks we are going to launch the remaining consultations on the exemption order, authorisation fee levels and the application form. I informed noble Lords at Report that we expect the regulation to be integrated into the regulatory structure to be provided for by the Legal Services Bill. I also set out an interim solution for dealing with regulation. An announcement was made in the other place that in the interim the Secretary of State, my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor, will regulate, supported by existing officials, together with appropriate senior expertise, skills and experience that are brought in from outside the Civil Service. I have referred before to the likelihood of a senior individual being recruited to help guide the successful implementation of the new regime. I am pleased to confirm today that, subject to finalising terms, Mark Boleat will be taking on this important role formally from the beginning of September. A key part of the proposed mechanism will be an external monitoring and compliance unit, whichwill help to process processing applications for authorisation, maintain a register of authorised persons, monitor compliance with the rules, monitor advertising and marketing activity, identify persons who are evading authorisation and advise the DCA on disciplinary matters and formal regulatory decisions. This will be supplied under contract by a single trading standards team operating across England and Wales, making full use of the networks already in place. The DCA retains full authority and responsibility for regulation but working with the right trading standards operation should help to ensure the early delivery of benefits to consumers. I have already visited Birmingham and the City of London trading standards units to learn more of the work they currently do. We have just concluded an expression of interest exercise and will be inviting short-listed departments to prepare detailed proposals. I expect the unit to be operational by October. We are also establishing a non-statutory regulatory consultancy group made up of representatives of the financial services and insurance industries, the legal profession, consumer groups and the claims management sector. It will help ensure that we continue to engage fully with all those who have an expert interest in making a positive difference in the claims sector. The group’s first meeting will be next week. The timetable for regulation we are working tois as follows. The regulatory mechanisms will be established in October 2006; applications will be invited from November 2006; the deadline for applications is February 2007; the tribunal is to be established in February 2007; and offences and remaining provisions will go live in April 2007. In earlier debates I stressed the speed with which we have brought forward measures to regulate the claims management sector. I hope that noble Lords are reassured by that brief but, I hope, detailed résumé of the amount of work that has been going on since the Bill left your Lordships’ House; it will continue through the summer months. I hope that I have given some comfort to those who are concerned that we need to be seen to get on with it. On Question, Motion agreed to. 6: Clause 15, page 9, line 16, leave out ““section 1”” and insert ““sections 1, 2 and (Mesothelioma: damages)””