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Legal Services Bill [HL]

I sincerely thank all noble Lords who have spoken. One has to accept that it is inevitable that some decisions of the LSB are bound to be flawed for the reasons given as grounds in the two amendments to which I have spoken. Perhaps I should accept, having reread the Official Report after I tore up my notes, that I got it wrong when I referred to assembling pieces in a jigsaw to make a pattern. I had it in mind that perhaps—and I think that my noble and learned friend Lord Lyell of Markyate got near the point—there should be one or two amendments to the Bill to cover matters of principle. But so much of a change in structure, to which my noble friend Lord Hunt of Wirral referred, really should not be like pieces of a jigsaw. These are procedural provisions that should really be introduced by secondary legislation or a code of practice, to which Lord Denning and Lord Elwyn-Jones spoke, to relieve the structure of the Bill from erosion and being over-burdened with detail. We have reached the stage when nothing more can be said of any constructive value until consultation has ensued with the Minister and my noble friends, to whom I defer—although I do not necessarily defer to the Minister. I should be most interested to hear about the consultations—and perhaps I shall be allowed to attend them—and what the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, who has made a great contribution, and the noble Lord, Lord Maclennan of Rogart, have to say. We need to have a constructive meeting to get this Bill into shape. It is idle for the Minister to say—and I quote her very words—that the ““framework is very clear””. It is not clear at all; it is in a most frightful mess and must be put right. This is the object of the consultation which, I am sure, can be undertaken with considerable constructive purpose. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, will have time—although he will disagree—at least to attend the consultation, so that he knows what is going on and realises that it is certainly not my purpose to put hurdles in the way of the LSB to prevent it fulfilling its proper function. On that basis, thanking all noble Lords, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. Clause 32 agreed to. Schedule 7 agreed to. Clause 33 agreed to. Clause 34 [Public censure]: [Amendments Nos. 53 to 55 not moved.] Clause 34 agreed to.