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Legal Services Bill [HL]

My preference is to leave to the OLC the issue of whether to allow complaints to be continued when the original complainant has died. Of course, there will be some very clear-cut cases in which it would appear very unfair for a case to fall just before redress is rewarded because a complainant has died, but there may be other cases in which we have a less clear-cut situation. In general the scheme is designed for the clients of the lawyer in question, not for families or third parties. There are only a handful of places in which we are clear that we have strict requirements on the OLC to make rules, and we would rather leave this because we believe that there could be circumstances in which it might not be appropriate to do so. The critical point that the noble Lord was making falls under Amendment No. 123, with the question of redress and making sure that rights are preserved. Absolutely. When a person gains the right to continue a complaint under rules under Clause 129(4), he will step into the shoes of the original complainant, so any redress will be rewarded as it would have been to the original complainant. I am assured that that is captured in the Bill, but I will look at the provision again, as I absolutely agree with the noble Lord that if someone is allowed to move in to the complainant’s shoes the redress should continue as expected.