---

Legal Services Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 7: 7: Schedule 1 , page 112, line 6, at end insert ““with the concurrence of the Lord Chief Justice”” The noble Lord said: My Lords, I am not tongue-tied—I thought it better to allow a short period for Members of the House to withdraw. In moving the amendment, I make the normal declarations of interest I have made on previous occasions. I am a practising member of the Bar, in my time I served on the Bar Council and I was chairman of the Bar. I also served on the Joint Committee that looked at the Bill, and I owe it to that period of service that I have at any rate some sort of working knowledge of some of the main provisions of the Bill. My amendment raises a key issue about the mode of appointment of the leading figures who will be operating under the Legal Services Act. We are talking today about probably the most important of the offices: the chairman of the Legal Services Board. I want to link back. It is fortuitous that the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, should have mentioned that there are certain aspects of what we are debating that to my mind have no flavour at all of party politics. The issue we are talking about now is how the chairman of the Legal Services Board should be appointed, and whether it is sufficient that his appointment should be in the hands solely now of the Lord Chancellor. It would have been the Secretary of State, but now, as I read the amendments, it will be the Lord Chancellor who makes the appointment. As we know, however, the role of the Lord Chancellor has been transformed. The august office whose former holder is present today is now scarcely recognisable under the title of Lord Chancellor. These issues have nothing to do with party politics, but everything to do with trying to move forward on this new legal services territory—which, it is quite honest to admit, is experimental—and doing so on the basis of consensus so that you carry people with you. It is therefore important not to ignore perfectly valid points. The basic submission I will be making with this amendment is that it is valid to argue that the top player on the scene—that is, the chairman of the Legal Services Board; I put him top—should get there by being appointed by the Lord Chancellor but with the concurrence of the senior judge, the Lord Chief Justice. Why is that important? It is really too obvious to state: because the legal profession must be brought on board and go along with what is happening. One thing came out clearly in the evidence to the Joint Committee, and we referred to it in our report. The impression had been created by various provisions in the Bill—I will mention two in a moment—that in some way the legal profession of this country would lose its independence and be manipulated by party politics and by government. One ground for that perception was itemised in detail by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Wirral. On two occasions he drew attention to the number of places in the Bill where there is a reference to the Secretary of State—perhaps it is now the Lord Chancellor—being in a position to order this, that or the other thing to happen, or to give directions. There are numerous examples. The other place where it was picked up was the territory we are now in—that is, who appoints the key players? Is it simply done by the Lord Chancellor or should it be done with the full support of the legal profession, evidenced by the judgment and verdict of the Lord Chief Justice, as there can be no more suitable officer to do that? Wading through the Bill to look at the provisions we are repealing shows many examples of appointments and like matters being done by a Minister but with the concurrence of the Lord Chief Justice. Sometimes more than one judge is mentioned; sometimes two or three office-holders are mentioned. The concept of acting with the concurrence of a high legal officer of the judiciary is very familiar. I am happy to see that the amendment has the backing of others. To repeat a point that I touched on at Second Reading but certainly made in Committee, if the Government accept the amendment, it would be a major step in harmonising or bringing on board the good feeling of members of the legal profession who, in some quarters, feel isolated. How can one resist the proposal that the Lord Chief Justice should concur in such an important appointment? The noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor said—I am sure that these are not words he is very proud of—something along the lines that consumers tend to think of the Lord Chief Justice as just another lawyer. Even if there were any empirical evidence to establish that, which I very much doubt, consumers come in all shapes and sizes—some will know perfectly well who the Lord Chief Justice is. They will know his reputation and if they do not know the man, they will know the office. The office of Lord Chief Justice has been there for centuries as one of the branches of the courts. There were two or three at one time but for the past 100 or 150 years, there has been one Lord Chief Justice. It is no answer to the argument to say that people regard the Lord Chief Justice as another lawyer. That is saying that to associate a lawyer with the appointment somehow contaminates it. What is the validity of saying that people will look on him as just another lawyer? So that is not an answer. With the greatest respect to the noble Baroness, Lady Ashton, I think it is fair to say that although she displayed her usual courtesy and charm earlier, we got no further than her indicating that this was not on the agenda or the menu so she was not in a position to give any of the body language that we have had on other occasions with regard to this amendment. On the terminology of the amendment, the Joint Committee’s report contained language such as ““after consultation with the Lord Chief Justice””. On reflection, I am a party to that report, so I could be said to be departing from what we recommended. However, in the light of my experience in public law, where sometimes a perfunctory consultation has been held to amount to consultation, I came to think that it would be much better to use the old language that I found in the old precedents and talk about ““the concurrence”” of the Lord Chief Justice. You could also refer to ““the approval”” of the Lord Chief Justice. An amendment on removal to be debated later refers to approval. Incidentally, it is obvious that the point that I am now making about the appointment of the high officers who will run the service will hold equally good for their removal. Amendments later today deal with that. I think that I have said enough to indicate why this is a desirable amendment and why the House ought to adopt it. I beg to move.