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Legal Services Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 151ZA: 151ZA:Schedule 17 , page 265, line 12, at end insert— ““In section 22 (keeping accounts and establishment of client accounts) omit subsections (4) and (5).”” The noble Lord said: In moving this amendment, I shall also speak to Amendments Nos. 151ZB, 151ZC and 151ZD. These amendments concern licensed conveyancing. The Council for Licensed Conveyancers is one of the approved regulators set out in paragraph 1 of Schedule 4 to the Bill. Schedule 17 contains all the amendments currently proposed to its statutory powers. The further changes contained in Amendments Nos. 151ZA to 151ZD are important to the council. The Bill represents a perfect opportunity to make these long overdue changes to the Council for Licensed Conveyancers’ statutory regime, and we would very much welcome their inclusion. Amendment No. 151ZA would remove the unnecessarily prescriptive requirement that the reporting accountant is eligible for appointment as a company auditor. Amendment No. 151ZB refers to the power to charge for the costs of investigations and would bring the statutory regime for licensed conveyancers into line with the proposed new Section 44C of the Solicitors Act. Amendment No. 151ZC is fairly straightforward in that it simply introduces additional disciplinary sanctions available against licensed conveyancers, which would ensure consistency with Section 26(2) of the Administration of Justice Act. Amendment No. 151ZD is perhaps the most important of all, and concerns the delegation of powers. The council’s current entitlement to delegate powers is extremely narrow, particularly when compared with the proposed amendment in this Bill to Section 79 of the Solicitors Act 1974. This amendment would allow the discharge of functions to a committee, a member of the council staff or any other appropriate person. There would be no requirement for the council to take advantage immediately of the increased flexibility in the delegation of its functions. We suspect that these amendments are not likely to be controversial with the Government, but are more likely to be the result—dare I say it?—of oversight. These omissions, therefore, perhaps provide additional evidence of the over-expedited nature of this part of the Bill. I beg to move.