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Legal Services Bill [HL]

My intervention on this amendment provides an opportunity for me to give notice that I will not object to Clause 154 standing part of the Bill. I tabled my intention to oppose the clause—the general provisions of which I approve—in order to probe whether it also covers the potential for redress in relation to malpractice issues. For the consumer—the client—it can be obscure on occasion whether what they are complaining about is an issue of professional malpractice or a failure of service, which is appropriate for the OLC. They may take one course or the other, or both. It is therefore important that issues of professional malpractice, which are dealt with by the front-line regulators, are also subject to the same possibilities of redress. As to the tragic miners’ case to which my noble friend Lady Henig referred, and which was eloquently spoken to by my noble friend Lord Lofthouse at Second Reading, if we look at it through the punters’ eyes, it is not absolutely clear whether that is an issue of malpractice or one of failure of service and incompetence. I support the objectives of my noble friend’s amendment. I hope that the Minister will clarify whether the Government consider that the Bill as it stands adequately provides for redress in cases of professional malpractice.