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Legal Services Bill [HL]

I find the reply of the noble Baroness almost more disturbing than her initial remarks. She seems to be saying that because the case gets to the OLC, the person who was complained against was in some way responsible. Frankly, that cannot be right. It is wrong to seek to finance or to sustain, or partially sustain, a body of this kind by contributions from people against whom charges have been brought which have not been found to be substantiated. If there is some administrative problem, that is certainly not a cause for levying a charge against an individual. I am bound to say that nothing that the Minister has said so far in the debate gives one any cause for satisfaction that this problem has even been recognised by the draftsman of the Bill. It may not be appropriate to divide the House—I do not know the intentions of the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland—but I am bound to say that we shall certainly wish to return to this matter, no doubt following wider consultations. This is such an important issue of principle that the idea that it can be sorted out by schemes that will be drafted by this body and which is not clearly part of the law is a wholly unsatisfactory way of dealing with this.