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Legal Services Bill [HL]

With respect, the question should be how the board would arrive at its decisions. In other words, we are trying to determine not the way in which a regulatory body might have behaved that would lead to the board’s decisions but the way in which the board would decide how to use its powers. There is a need to be transparent, accountable, proportionate, consistent and targeted only at cases where action is needed. Noble Lords have questioned whether we need to strengthen the Bill in part, and, as they know, I am looking at that. We have tried to litter this Bill with references to make it clear that the board has to operate transparently, appropriately and proportionately. For me, designing a board by saying, ““This is how you must behave”” is a better way of achieving what I think the noble Lord is seeking—that is, it ensures that the board does not exercise its power inappropriately or heavy-handedly and so on. There is unanimity in the Committee about light-touch supervisory regulation. No one has argued against that and the Government do not either. Therefore, how the board uses its powers is about saying, ““You must behave in this way””, rather than trying to develop criteria for when it would use them.