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Legal Services Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 42: 42: Schedule 4 , page 132, line 40, leave out sub-paragraph (3) and insert — ““(3) Alterations are exempt unless the Board has directed that they are not to be treated as exempt for the purposes of this paragraph.”” The noble Lord said: We now return to the underlying issue of the responsibilities of the Legal Services Board in relation to the approved regulators. The amendment is designed to ensure that the Legal Services Board’s approval is not routinely required for changes to an approved regulator’s regulatory arrangements. It reverses the presumption as drafted in the Bill. As the Bill stands, the board may exempt an alteration of regulatory arrangements only if it has already directed that they are to be treated as exempt. The amendment would alter that presumption and make any alterations exempt unless the board has directed that they are not to be treated as such. There is also a resources implication. It must follow from the presumption in the Bill that the board will have more cases to review. This extra weight of work would inevitably mean that the board would have to expand its staff to deal with extra approvals, making it, in my contention, unnecessarily bloated. Shifting the presumption along the lines of the amendment should therefore contribute to a more cost-efficient system as well as reinforcing the supervisory character of the Legal Services Board. After all, even with the amendment, the board can still intervene if the altered regulatory arrangement adopted by the approved regulator is exercised improperly or ineffectively. Amendment No. 42 would not take away the power that the Government wish to give to the board in the schedule. The board would still have the power to require advanced approval either in an individual case or for a specified category of changes to the rules. The only change proposed is a shift in the underlying presumption. I beg to move.