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Legal Services Bill [HL]

I was not suggesting that the noble and learned Baroness has anything other than the highest respect for lay chairs, but she referred to the fact that the board will have a lay chair and lay members, so it was worth making the point for anyone reading our debate. Let us be clear where we are now. If you have rules relating to qualifications and conduct laid down by the Law Society and the Bar Council, they have to be approved now by the Secretary of State. All other rules are dealt with by the Law Society through the Master of the Rolls. All rules made by the Council for Licensed Conveyancers must be approved now by the Secretary of State. What we are providing for is a Legal Services Board with the discretion to exempt. In a sense we are arguing about two sides of the same coin here. The question is how to make sure that the Legal Services Board, in dealing with alterations to rules, is able to do that in the most effective way and, I think all will agree, without the overuse of resources, which has implications for those funding the resources. We are simply trying to decide which way around that will work most effectively. If we take the proposition that everything is exempt until otherwise, then if the noble and learned Baroness is right—she usually is—in saying that it will take a while for it to shake down, there might be a tendency not to allow any exemptions for the present because that is a way of making sure that we know what is happening right across the regulatory framework. If we decide to have exemptions unless otherwise provided for, we have to make sure that we know precisely what is happening at any given time, and the onus will be on the board to establish what is going on with the regulators. The point rightly referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford—here I paraphrase him—is about not having a proactive and therefore potentially interfering regulator operating in that way.