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Legal Services Bill [HL]

Never let it be said that the Committee proceedings on this Bill have been engineered by a conspiracy of lawyers; if they have, I am clearly not a part of it, at least with respect to this amendment. I place great weight on anything the noble Lords, Lord Neill of Bladen and Lord Borrie, say. Two issues lie behind this amendment. The first is whether there should be separate objectives for each regulator or whether we should rely on one list, as in the Bill. I take the view that there should be three, but noble Lords have expressed a variety of views about this question of principle. The second issue is, if we are to have three sets of objectives, whether I am right in limiting the objectives for the OLC to those relating to the consumer interest. The noble Lord, Lord Neill of Bladen, did an effective and trenchant job in undermining my approach to this amendment. I am trying to constrain the OLC from trespassing into areas that are not its responsibility. It should be kept on a very tight rein by the Legal Services Board and should perform only the single function outlined in the Bill. If the OLC is given scope to stray beyond that to take on the Legal Services Board, it will be costly and the areas into which it trespasses will confuse the way in which the Act is applied.