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Legal Services Bill [HL]

I am most grateful to the noble Baroness for her response to these two amendments. The noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, said that he supported them in principle but drew your Lordships’ attention to his own Amendment No. 65, which provides a generalised right for judicial review. That is his solution, which is good in the absence of any other remedy. There is, though, an important distinction between a statutory right of appeal and judicial review. To obtain judicial review you must first persuade a court to give you permission. That obstacle would not be present if there were a statutory right of appeal. That is why I prefer a generalised system of statutory rights of appeal to a generalised system of judicial review. A statutory right of appeal is especially important under Clause 34 because the public censuring of a statutory body—as an approved regulator would be—is a serious matter. Can the noble Baroness give us some illustrations of when she believes that the Legal Services Board is likely to exercise the power under Clause 34? In the Government’s view, what acts by an approved regulator are likely to attract public censure under the clause? That might make it easier for your Lordships to take a view on the merits of our amendment.