---

Legal Services Bill [HL]

I am fascinated by some of the Minister’s comments. The procedure of judicial review has arisen—this was borne out by the quotations that I utilised—out of the fact that the Government left no other course. As Michael Fordham put it very well in his Judicial Review Handbook, "““By judicial review, the judiciary assumes the constitutional responsibility of curbing executive power””." For the Government now to encourage judicial review, when it was only spawned as the sole real method of curbing executive power, is fascinating. I believe the Minister said that she did not want to limit the extent of judicial review. I well remember the words of former Home Secretary David Blunkett about the result of one or two such reviews, but it is strange for the Government to be contemplating that it is the right remedy. We will come to that matter later, but surely it is better to include in the Bill clear appeal procedures rather than leave it to a procedure that has evolved as the only means of curbing executive power.