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Legal Services Bill [HL]

My Lords, I support the amendments as being of principle, for the reasons given by my noble friend. There is not, and never has been, any entitlement to costs. An award of costs is entirely a question of discretion. In this case, with the ombudsman or the OLC, it is an exercise of quasi-judicial discretion. There is no entitlement; there never has been. The exercise of quasi-judicial discretion imposed by a mandatory costs order under primary legislation is anathema; it is ill-conceived and outrageously unfair. The exercise of such discretion, whether judicial or quasi-judicial, takes due and fair account of factors relevant to the case. I never cite cases here, but there was one in which I won in the Privy Council against my erstwhile noble friend, the late Lord Ripon, in which I did not get my costs. There was another in your Lordships’ Appellant Committee, in which I lost and I did not have to pay any costs. The details do not matter—they are all recorded in the law reports—but what matters is the principle on which the court or the tribunal makes a fair decision. Is it really the business of Government to impose a costs order upon a lawyer who has committed no misconduct because he or she happens to have rendered legal services? How on earth did this happen? Well, you start off by calling the lawyer a ““polluter””. You take a spin for a placebo to feather, perhaps, the legacy nest. You conjure up in your mind a puppet show on the seaside in the old days: consumer with a truncheon clobbers bewigged polluter, and everyone screams with enjoyment. Why on earth were the recommendations of the Joint Committee, on which I had the privilege to serve, rejected? I would like that question to be answered. Why cannot the Clementi soft touch be found in the Bill? My noble and learned friend Lord Mackay of Clashfern mentioned this the other day, albeit in another context. Why was it ignored? I have another question which is relevant for answer. Is it the business of government to usurp this quasi judicial function as to costs? For the reasons given by my noble friend, which I have sought to supplement, I suggest that there is no justification for that whatever.