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Legal Services Bill [HL]

I am most grateful to the noble Baroness for that response. It was genuinely helpful, not just in the way that members of the Diplomatic Service sometimes use that word. The difficulty that I and other noble Lords who have spoken have is that the noble Baroness is really saying, ““We agree with the principle, but we believe that if you look at the whole Bill, it reflects that principle””. Unfortunately, it is extremely difficult for the vast majority of people who will take an interest in these matters, once the Bill becomes law, to have to read the whole Act in order to find out what the function of the Legal Services Board should be. It would be much simpler if that function was crisply stated early on by one phrase or sentence. The noble Baroness has, I think, accepted that by some very clear body language—a vigorous movement of the head. I think we are making progress and I shall not endanger that by saying anything further on this matter; but I wanted to raise one other related issue. The noble Lord, Lord Maclennan of Rogart, in his first intervention, talked about the Legal Services Board questioning the judgment of the front-line regulators. This is an important and distinct point that is dealt with in a series of amendments, beginning with Amendment No. 45. My noble friend Lord Campbell of Alloway said, in a crisp intervention, that if this matter were to be an issue, we would probably need a clause that somehow constrained the discretion of the Legal Services Board. I simply state the problem, without wanting to open up a separate debate under an amendment that is less appropriate than Amendment No. 45. Suppose that a front-line regulator considers the objectives set out in Clause 1—competition, consumer interest and so on—balances them all, takes into account all the considerations that it should have done, makes a judgment and acts. Suppose that the Legal Services Board looks at that decision, looks at the objectives, takes into account also all the objectives that it should have done, but makes its own judgment, different to that of the approved regulator. When we reach Amendment No. 45, I will submit that it would be wholly inappropriate for the Legal Services Board to intervene in those circumstances. The fact that it did not agree with the front-line regulator should not be grounds for intervention by the Legal Services Board, as long as the regulator has properly addressed all the considerations that it should have addressed. That is precisely the same approach that the administrative court would take in relation to a decision by a Minister. The noble Lord, Lord Maclennan of Rogart, rightly said that it would be wrong for the Legal Services Board to stray into the area of an approved regulator. I picked up that point because it struck me as an important contribution to the debate; but it would probably not be helpful to the Committee to develop it now, because we will have an opportunity to do so when we consider Amendment No. 45. Meanwhile, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. Clause 3 agreed to. Clause 4 [Standards of regulation, education and training]: