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Legal Services Bill [HL]

I, too, am grateful to the Minister for her response to the last amendment. However, I return to Clause 36 itself, on financial penalties. Although the Minister has moved, one further small step needs to be taken to meet, I believe, with the approval of the All-Party Select Committee. The step involves trying to visualise the circumstances in which these financial penalties will be levied by one regulator against another. The noble Lord, Lord Whitty, prompts me to put the record straight. He gave the example of the Law Society being fined by the Legal Services Complaints Commissioner because she was dissatisfied with the plan that the Law Society had prepared for handling complaints. Once again, I declare my interest as a member of the Law Society and a practising solicitor. The Law Society had delegated responsibility for the plan to its independent consumer complaints board. Indeed, on some of the issues between the Legal Services Complaints Commissioner and the consumer complaints board, the Law Society agreed with the commissioner. Nevertheless, because the society had delegated control of complaints-handling to the independent body, it was unable to ensure that the plan met the Legal Services Complaints Commissioner’s requirements. Thus, the Law Society was fined for matters it could not control. I had to put the record straight in light of what the noble Lord said. The approach of the Joint Select Committee keeps returning to the point about partnership. We have to ask ourselves, as my noble friend Lord Kingsland did in the debate on the last amendment: who will pay this fine? Undoubtedly, as my noble and learned friend has just pointed out, it will be consumers of legal services who pay the fine. All those who are regulated are also consumers of those legal services. One has to ask: where are the precedents for good, smooth working between regulators which allow a supervisory regulator to impose a financial penalty on an approved regulator in the circumstances set out in the Bill? I hope that the noble Baroness will not only read again the joint select committee report—which I know she takes home with her every night in order to consider all these amendments—but reflect further. Are we setting up the right structure? We want to get away from this confrontation to reach unanimity on the context in which we are going to put the public and consumer interest right at the heart of this Bill.