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Legal Services Bill [HL]

I am very grateful to the noble Lord. I thought it might be something of that nature, but I did not know. I am sorry if I am bland; that is not a word that I associate with myself very often. I will attempt not to be. Please accept that for me the purpose of this discussion was to understand what noble Lords felt was missing in the Bill and to explain the concerns that I had about the amendment. I have taken legal advice and advice from parliamentary counsel on the amendment, as noble Lords would expect, and there is a concern that because the Legal Services Board might be thought to be responsible for every aspect of what the regulators were doing, it would require it to be more active than would necessarily be the desire of those behind the amendment. I felt it was perfectly reasonable to say to your Lordships that that was my concern. I know it is not the intention of the amendment, but it could be an effect. That was why I wanted to think about how the amendment was worded. I also said to noble Lords that the principle of the operation between the Legal Services Board and the regulated bodies was one on which I felt there was a great deal of agreement. I said that noble Lords had expressed extremely succinctly their concern that they did not feel that this was effectively laid out, in the early part of the Bill in particular. I said that I understood the points that had been made, and I was prepared to go back to discuss this with my colleagues in the department and to look at it again. But I was also trying to say that it was not that the Government did not intend it to be the relationship that noble Lords wanted, but rather we hoped that we had achieved it in the totality of the Bill. I apologise to the noble Lord if that was a bland set of statements, but it was not meant in any way to raise the temperature in the Committee; quite the opposite. It was meant to say that our intentions are the same. If noble Lords believe that we have not quite got it right, of course I will go away and think again. That is what noble Lords would expect me to do at this stage in the Bill. On that note, I hope that the noble Lord will be able to withdraw his amendment, with the commitment that I have made.