---

Legal Services Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 39: 39: Clause 12 , page 5, line 25, at end insert— ““( ) will-writing for fee, gain or reward;”” The noble Lord said: This amendment raises an issue in stark contrast to the matters we have debated for the past three quarters of an hour or so. It concerns will writing. Its substance was another recommendation of the Joint Committee that was rejected by the Government. The Government’s view is that once the Legal Services Board is established, it will have the power to determine whether will writing should be brought under its regulatory control. However, the Government have already shown—for example, in claims management—their willingness to regulate in new areas if there is a convincing public need to do so. In our submission, they would be wrong to abandon this approach and leave it to the Legal Services Board to respond, for the sake of illustration, to some major scandal in the area of will writing that might occur at a future date. Our view is that the absence of regulation of will-writing combined with the fact that a defect in a will is normally identified only when it is too late to do anything about it provide a particularly strong need for regulation in this sector. There is a strong case for will-writing to be brought within the regime now, especially as it often requires a lot of tax advice and specialist knowledge. In short, we urge the Government to follow the Joint Committee’s recommendation. We remind the Government that they were perfectly well able to get round the hurdles in relation claims management in the Compensation Bill, and we see no reason why they should not get around similar hurdles—if, indeed, the Government perceives that there are such—in relation to this Bill. I beg to move.