Public Bodies Bill [HL]

Baroness Deech Excerpts

Tuesday 9th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Deech]

My Lords, it has been said that there are good quangos and bad quangos. It is time for some root-and-branch reform and it is the job of the powers contained in the Bill to distinguish between them. The art is to find the right criteria to enable us to reform or remove those quangos that are a hindrance, and preserve those that meet the right criteria, including cost, accountability, representativeness, impartiality and the ability to establish facts that enable good government to go forward.

Why have quangos become so unpopular? There are issues with salaries, people, language, mission creep and politicisation. One of the issues that have affected the standing of some quangos is salaries. Some are very high and it is important that the people who sit on the quangos should be representative of the population they serve and be well regarded for their expertise and impartiality.

John Kay, the economist, has said that there is a modern class of “quangocrats” who glide effortlessly from committee to committee. Some of your Lordships may include me in that category. Reluctant though I am, it has been said in the past few years that if it moves, I am called upon to regulate it. However, successful quangos are those that give real authority to people with specialist skills—judges, medical professionals and so on—where relevant to the committees. As your Lordships will know if you check your pigeonholes, there are far too many glossy brochures produced at great waste, not least of carbon emissions. When such publications emanating from quangos make less sense than they should because they shroud real meaning in a cloud of inappropriate business speak, one knows that there is something amiss. “Drill down”, “delivery”, “KPIs”, “going forward”, “robust”, “transparent” and “stakeholders” are all terms that I try to keep out of my office’s documents.

Others have commented on the constitutional issues arising from the power in the Bill to enable Ministers to set aside legislation without even a duty to consult. I support every word of the criticism made of the operation of the Bill. I am pleased that my noble and right reverend friend Lord Harries and my noble friend Lady Warnock, who have such experience and expertise in this field, have said all that I could say about the need to keep the HFEA; and others have spoken about higher education. It is not right to roll in the Office of the Independent Adjudicator—I was once the adjudicator—that takes care of complaints into the body that funds universities. Noble Lords should try to salvage whatever is good in the Bill. It is marked by indecisiveness and there is everything still to play for.

I will confine myself now to legal regulation and declare an interest as chairman of the Bar Standards Board. It is arguable that the legal profession is overregulated and is paying the price for the way in which solicitors did not handle complaints in the past. The Legal Services Act 2007 drew the barristers’ profession into the maze of regulation that it introduced, although there was little evidence to place the Bar under the same regime as solicitors. As chair of the Bar Standards Board, one of my serious concerns is the possible undermining of the professional standards, service and independence of the profession by the cult of consumerism. Consumerism is a major issue in the decisions about bodies listed in the Bill. It could be argued that the Legal Services Board Consumer Panel, whose existence has been said in newspapers to be under threat, fails to meet the criteria for retention. There is duplication of its work. The Bar Standards Board and the Solicitors Regulation Authority have consumer engagement strategies and panels. Much market research on this has been carried out, special reports have been commissioned on all sorts of areas relating to law, and there is no need for more. Not least, the cost of all this falls on the legal profession, which of course passes it on to its clients. When legal aid is being cut, I hope the Government will bear in mind the need to keep down those costs.

I welcome the proposal to study and merge the consumer organisations into one, and to end the tyranny of consumerism, as it has been called. Over the decades, the word “consumer” has become something of a Trojan horse for the import of the social policies of whatever Government are in power—a way of insisting that a certain line should be followed, sometimes without regard for the wider meaning attributed to the term “consumer” by the legal profession, which goes beyond the normal meaning to encompass duty to the court and the rule of law, and the engagement with judges, government departments, businesses and solicitors. My views accord with those of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Neuberger, Master of the Rolls, who said in a speech three days ago:

“It is of fundamental importance that, particularly when it comes to the professions, above all the legal profession, society does not adopt what might be called a form of unreflective consumer fundamentalism”.

“Consumer” is no longer equivalent to impartial or independent. Far from protecting the profession, it could be seen as a political threat. Even students are called consumers. They certainly are not: they are participators and learners. Education, like legal services, is not a good that is delivered and received passively for a price. Education is an investment, not something that is to be consumed. The provision of legal services is not equivalent to the servicing of a gas boiler.

There is a perception that the Legal Services Board Consumer Panel may fail the test of impartiality and expert evidence. After a freedom of information request, it was revealed that the panel has an unbalanced political composition. Half of its members are declared members of the Labour Party and/or members of unions—the unions being, of course, supporters of the Labour Party. Why does this matter? Because there is a conflict between the duty to represent the consumer and certain vested interests that are not always transparently declared in, for example, the Consumer Panel report on referral fees, which was adopted by the parent body, the Legal Services Board. The Labour Party itself is in receipt of referral fees. Lord Justice Jackson, in his Review of Civil Litigation Costs earlier this year, said that they should be banned in personal injury cases. So did the noble Lord, Lord Young of Graffham, in his report on the claims culture. The Law Society has set its face against the practice. Therefore, it is odd that the LSB Consumer Panel has come out in favour of the retention of referral fees, whereby solicitors and others may buy in work by, for example, paying unions to refer business to them. Given that half of the Consumer Panel is made up of members of the Labour Party, the perception may be there—it is possible to make the criticism—that it could be influenced by the unwillingness of the party to give up a potential source of income from the firm of solicitors that acts on its behalf in personal injury cases.

[Lord Whitty]

My Lords, I find this an extraordinary attack on the concept of consumerism or consumer representation within legal regulation. Your Lordships may recall that when the Legal Services Act passed this House, there was a barrage of resistance from lawyers of various descriptions on various Benches in this House to a consumer voice being built into it. After much persuasion, the Front Benches of all political parties accepted that there should indeed be a consumer panel, and I regret that some members of the legal profession now find it too onerous to observe the normal courtesies to their clients, as members of any other profession are required to do.

[Baroness Deech]

My Lords, there is no doubt that the voice of the consumer needs to be heard, but much turns on how one defines “consumer” and how that voice is heard and dealt with. It is very hard to overlook the scandal that occurred when sick miners were deprived of much of the damages that they should have had because the firm of solicitors that was tied to the union by referral fees creamed off much of the money for itself. The system of referral fees is flawed and it is very hard to understand how a consumer panel can support what looks like the interests of solicitors firms and unions rather than those of consumers. Therefore, I think that there is an element of politicisation in this. It has not worked out in the way that was intended, and it would be right to refer the Bill to a Select Committee for careful examination of the quangos listed, category by category, and for us to think afresh about who sits on them and what their job should be.