Legal Services Act 2007 (Appeals from Licensing Authority Decisions) Order 2011

Lord Hunt of Wirral Excerpts

Monday 27th June 2011 Grand Committee

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

My Lords, I declare an interest as chair of the Legal Services Consumer Panel. I welcome these two orders, which appear a little technical—as, indeed, they are. But they are also important milestones on the road to seeing a new form of company opening for business which will help clients get access to good legal advice and enable “one-stop shops” to serve the needs of consumers. The Legal Services Act 2007 is a key piece of legislation introduced by the previous Government. It set up the Legal Services Board and the consumer panel which I have the honour to chair. That Act established independent oversight of the regulation lawyers. The Act clearly requires that such regulations should be in the interests of access to justice and the rule of law, and also be consumer focused.

The Act, as we know, set up the new legal ombudsman, which came intro operation in October last year. What is pertinent to today’s discussion is that it allows a new form of business, as the Minister has set out, combining law with other services in ways that we hope will better serve the needs of some clients in accessing particular types of service. As has been stated, the orders are part of the preparation for the introduction of the new business structures and are intended to ensure that the licensing authorities, which are the specialist parts of the approved regulators, will be ready to accept applications from October this year.

I, too, will start with the second order: like the noble Lord, Lord Thomas, I had them originally in the other order. The second order deals with appeals that are turned down by the new licensing authorities. It gives the First-tier Tribunal the remit to hear appeals from the Council for Licensed Conveyancers. This is a sensible, proportionate and appropriate regime. The noble Lord, Lord Thomas, said that he was surprised that the solicitors were not similarly covered. I very much regret that absence, and the fact that the Solicitors Regulation Authority did not accept exactly the same system for appeals against its decisions as a licensing authority on the same issue: namely, rejections of applications to be allowed to operate the new business framework. As other noble Lords have been said, the SRA prefers its own Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal, for which, as we have heard, a separate order will come here in due course. I regret this because it will risk causing a delay to the desired 6 October start date. It will also mean, perhaps more seriously in the longer term, that there will be two tribunals dealing with essentially identical cases. It is in the interest of consumers, and more widely in everyone’s interests, that a single, consistent body of case law should develop about legal services regulatory matters. Despite the absence of the SRA, I nevertheless welcome the order, which allows for an efficient and cost-effective solution to regulation completely independent of the CLC.

On the first order, I simply note and welcome the proposed change in membership of the Council for Licensed Conveyancers, which, as the noble Lord, Lord McNally, explained, will provide for a lay majority. This is in line with the Act’s requirement for the Legal Services Board and also with the LSB’s internal governance rules for all front-line, approved regulators.

[Lord Hunt of Wirral]

My Lords, I support my noble friend Lord Thomas of Gresford in his comments about the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act. I recollect that, with the noble Lord, Lord Bach, we spent considerable time not only in debating the Legal Services Bill, as it then was, but in the previous Select Committee. One basis on which we took forward the notion of alternative business structures was that there should be a level playing field. I explain that by reiterating the fact that the Solicitors Regulation Authority, which was established by the Law Society to discharge the society’s regulatory functions, should have exactly the same powers to regulate ABS firms as it has already to regulate existing firms. We made several commitments at the time to reassure people about the new structures and affirm that there would be a level playing field between ABS firms and existing law firms. That is why we see a problem with the implementation of alternative business structures that is not dealt with through these provisions. Those are the arrangements to ensure that the prospective owners of ABS firms are fit and proper persons. Indeed, I could quote myself, Jonathan Djanogly MP or the noble Lord, Lord Bach, in stressing the importance of this key issue.