---

Legal Services Bill [HL]

I love the idea of your Lordships’ House or indeed the noble Lord himself allowing anything of this nature to just ““slip through””. I cannot at this moment recall precise pieces of legislation where these words have been used, but in legislation generally we have had on occasion to think about making sure that there is sufficient clarity to allow a body to operate and achieve its objectives within a framework that states, ““Here are things that the body must do, but from time to time as a consequence of the way things work out in practice, there may be a need to ensure that it has the breadth of power to be able to operate””. I accept that the noble Lord sees this as a rather broad approach, but it is entirely to ensure that within the regulatory objectives and what has been said in the Hampton review on how regulatory inspection should operate—transparently, proportionately and so forth—the board will have the discretion to do other things if they are thought to be appropriate. Although the power might look broad, it applies only within the framework of the way in which the board can operate in any event. I should say to noble Lords that we have sought to recognise that when primary legislation comes along, we put in it the things that are important. The operation of the board needs to be set up in a way that is as clear as possible and does not underestimate the fact that from time to time the board may have to do things that are not specified in the legislation. I am sure that the noble Lord will recognise from his own experience that, if one frames a Bill too tightly and does not make provision for occasions when things need to be done within the regulatory objectives and modus operandi of the body, one has to wait for another piece of primary legislation either to make corrections or, more important, to enable the body to do something. While this may look like a catch-all provision, it will operate absolutely within the framework of the Bill. I have just been told that the Access to Justice Act 1999 and the Communications Act 2003 both contain this provision.