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Legal Services Bill [HL]

I must vehemently oppose this amendment. The last two groups have seriously underlined a philosophical difference between the Opposition Front Benches and what I understood to be the original consumer-protection focus of the Bill. The whole point of ombudsman systems in other sectors is to have a disputes resolution process that avoids going through the full paraphernalia of the court. The amendments debated recently seem to suggest that we must, as far as possible, try to shove all these disputes back into the court system, but that is to the clear detriment of the consumer. The logic of the point from the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, is that the bigger the complaint then the more difficult we want to make it for the consumer to pursue it through alternative, more informal forms of dispute resolution. That is not a tenable position. Other amendments have been tabled here relating to the possibility of having an independent review process. I am not sure what I feel about that, but it is certainly more in keeping with the ombudsman approach than one saying that the automatic form of appeal is to go to the High Court. I add that, looking at the precise detail of this amendment, it is only the respondent who has the right to appeal to the High Court—or so it reads at the moment—so all talk of fairness is eliminated for me. Clearly, we cannot exclude the possibility of judicial review; that exists in all such processes. Yet to make it clear, frankly, to lawyers that there is another almost automatic ability to appeal to the High Court, if the case goes against you, seems to get to the spirit of providing an easier method of consumer redress than presently exists.