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Legal Services Bill [HL]

This is an important point, whether one looks at Amendment No. 52, which we are currently discussing, or Amendment No. 139F, which is grouped with it. We shall come to it in a different guise when we come to Amendment No. 56 and the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Maclennan of Rogart. It is all about the question of appeal, whether in the form of a straightforward appeal to the High Court, as we find in Amendment No. 56, or of judicial review. It comes down to a principle that I think the Government would readily accept, that no body that exercises power ought to exercise it in the absence of review to the courts or some superior appellate body. That is a very important constitutional principle; otherwise the power is potentially unfettered. There should be no worry on that account among those whom the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, represents. If the Legal Services Board exercised power in a way which was seriously not in the interests of consumer bodies, those bodies themselves would be entitled to apply for judicial review. Whether they would be entitled to appeal if the directions were not against them is a more difficult question. In this probing amendment, as my noble friend Lord Campbell of Alloway—to whom I am greatly indebted for raising the matter—said at the outset, one is interested to hear how the Government and the Minister approach the matter. I would hope, as I say, that their approach fully recognised the principle of some form of effective appeal, and gave us some guidance on how they think that can best be dealt with, not just in the comparatively focused—and, to that extent, comparatively narrow—way that which to be covered by the Bill as presently drafted, but in terms of how we should end up.