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Legal Services Bill [HL]

My question was by no means idle. In the course of the Minister’s response—I think to my noble friend Lord Hunt, but possibly to the noble Lord, Lord Maclennan—she said that the Legal Services Board must not rely on her words to interpret its function. If the Minister stands by that, something must clearly be said in the Bill about the supervisory role of the Legal Services Board and the primary regulatory role of the approved regulators if the Legal Services Board is to reflect the philosophy that she has expounded in Committee on more than one occasion. Otherwise, the Legal Services Board will be free to read what it will into this Bill and will be in no way obliged to take note of the Minister’s many statements in these debates about what the proper relationship between these two statutory authorities ought to be. In the light of the Minister’s reply, the importance of something in the Bill reflecting her underlying philosophy becomes extremely important to the Opposition.