---

Legal Services Bill [Lords]

I shall speak to amendment No. 35 and other amendments in my name and the name of my hon. Friends on the position of trade unions under the Bill. The purpose of amendments Nos. 35 and 36 is to reverse the trade unions' extremely wide-ranging exemption from the regulatory requirements under the alternative business structure regime of part 5. The exemption, which the Government shuffled in at the last minute in Committee, would mean that trade unions were not subject to any form of regulation under the Bill. Given that the benefit of the consumer has been touted as a key objective of the Bill throughout its stages, I cannot understand why the Government are now prepared to exclude unions from the regulatory framework and subject trade union members to a greater likelihood of receiving poor legal services from providers who are not accountable. Do the Government really think so little of union members that they will allow them to accept legal services of a lower quality than those that non-members would enjoy? It has been clearly highlighted that the behaviour of some trade unions has been wholly unacceptable—for example, in relation to miners' compensation schemes.