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Legal Services Bill [HL]

I take the view that public bodies operate in a way means that there is a right of judicial review. I was seeking to deal with the detail of the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway, by going through them line by line and addressing where judicial review would apply. The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, is a lawyer and I am not, but one thing I know for sure about legislation is that it is always difficult to set out all the circumstances that might apply when one makes application to the court. Indeed, in other parts of our legislative duty, the noble Lord and I would probably argue in opposite directions because it is important that we do not curb the rights of those who are entitled to judicial review. I have sought to explain that, in our view, that would be inappropriate. The right of judicial review is there because the board is a public body. It is an appropriate remedy if people believe that there has been unreasonable behaviour or seek judicial review for other reasons. But to say that it is available on these or other grounds would curb something inappropriately. The noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, very reasonably said that you can lodge an appeal later. Although we will come to the detail of that, it is reasonable for him to ask a general question. We have established that judicial review is available. However, the fining power within the Bill is, we believe, a stronger power. Noble Lords and those who are being regulated may also feel that it is stronger, more definitive and has potentially greater and far-reaching consequences. We therefore wanted to add the ability to go to appeal specifically around that power. So we did so, by saying that there would be leave to go to the High Court to appeal on that power. In order to ensure that we did not end up in a situation where someone could appeal on that and have a judicial review, the ouster clause simply says, ““If you're doing that, you can't have the judicial review as well because you already have the right to appeal””. That is what it is for. The purpose of the measure is to provide a judicial review in general and an appeal specifically around fining, but if there is an appeal around fining there is no need for a judicial review as well. The ouster clause therefore says that you cannot do both. That is what this part of the Bill seeks to do.