Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Lord Martin of Springburn Excerpts

Tuesday 20th March 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Martin of Springburn]

I declare an interest as a member of Unite. The noble Baroness, Lady Deech, was good enough to say that she had mentioned the problems of referral fees in a previous debate. That debate took place on my amendment. My case was that trade union officers go to places where there has been an accident. Therefore, there is a certain expenditure when those visits are made. There is obvious expenditure and there should be some compensation. The noble Baroness was good enough to mention referral fees and I was deeply impressed by what she said. Therefore, I will not move Amendment 146.

[Baroness Deech]

My Lords, I should have declared an interest as chairman of the Bar Standards Board, which prohibits barristers from receiving or dealing in referral fees. If I gave the impression last week that referral fees that go to unions go direct to the political party and that is wrong, I apologise. My point is that it is happening in another way. I have not yet been corrected but my research on the internet showed that direct referrals from a party to a firm resulted in the firm paying a referral fee to the political party. Therefore, if it is not happening in one way, it may be happening in another.