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Legal Services Bill [HL]

I hope the Minister will reconsider this, not just in the context of providing natural justice but as an explicit recognition that, in dealing with a consumer grievance which may have been articulated by the Consumer Panel, the consumer interest may best be advanced by a specialist approach that cannot be applied to the issue raised by somebody other than the body which we are seeking to have represented. Too often in these debates, perhaps understandably because of the long-standing sense of the consumer lobby that its voice has not always been heard, we have treated the consumer interest and the provider of the service as being at odds with each other in an adversarial relationship. That is perhaps natural for lawyers who come to this debate in our system. But it is also possible that, in providing for the consumer interest, the legal service provider can make substantial and helpful proposals on how practices should be changed or why a proposal from the Consumer Body is not apt to deal with the problem identified. I very much take the point made by the noble Viscount, Lord Bledisloe, arguing on an analogy with the medical profession. If a problem has arisen in these matters of patent, agencies and so forth, surely those bodies should be consulted in order to provide the right answer—the enforceable answer, the effective answer, the equitable answer—in the interests of the consumer. Setting up these practitioners’ bodies is not purely emblematic; it is about ensuring that the relevant arguments are heard and addressed.