Clause
18
Authorised
persons
Mr.
Djanogly:
I beg to move amendment No. 256, in
clause 18, page 8, line 32, at
end insert—
‘(c) A body,
which is not a licensable body, but which carries on a relevant
activity by virtue of Section [Registration of non-authorised
managers]’.
The
Chairman:
With this it will be convenient to discuss the
following amendments:
No. 257, in
clause 72, page 41, line 10, leave
out subsection (1) and
insert—
‘(1) For the
purposes of this Act, a body is a “licensable body”
if—
(a) at least one
manager of the body is an individual who is a non-authorised person who
provides services directly or indirectly to clients;
or
(b) more than 25 per cent.
of the managers of the bodyare individuals who are not
authorised persons regardless of whether they provide services directly
or indirectly to clients; or
(c) at least one person who has an interest in
shares in the body is a non-authorised person and is not a manager of
that
body.’.
No.
268, in
clause 71, page 41, line 8, at
end insert—
‘,
provided that a body is not a “licensable body” if the
only managers who are non-authorised persons are individuals who do not
directly provide any services to
consumers.’.
No.
259, in
clause 72, page 41, line 13, at
end insert—
‘(1A) A body is
not a licensable body if it is regulated under section 9(A) of the
Administration of Justice Act
1985.’.
No.
260, in
schedule 16, page 264, line 35, leave
out paragraphs (a) and (b) and
insert—
‘at least
three-quarters of the partners are authorised persons or are registered
foreign lawyers, and any other partners do not directly provide
services to
clients.’.
No.
261, in
schedule 16, page 264, line 43, leave
out paragraphs (a) and (b) and
insert—
‘at least
three-quarters of the members of the body are authorised persons or are
registered foreign lawyers, and any other members do not directly
provide services to
clients.’.
No.
262, in
schedule 16, page 265, line 6, leave
out paragraphs (a) and (b) and
insert—
‘at least
three-quarters of the persons within subsection (5) are authorised
persons or are registered foreign lawyers, and any other members do not
directly provide services to
clients.’.
New
clause 14—Registration of non-authorised
managers
—
‘(1)
Any body “B” which carries on an activity
underSection 13 of this Act, which is not a “licensable
body” as defined in Section [71(1)] but which has at least one
manager who is not an authorised person, must register any
non-authorised manager with an approved
regulator.
(2) It is an offence
for B to carry on an activity underSection 13 of this Act if B
does not comply with the conditions of this
section.
(3) For the purposes
of this section an approved regulator may refuse to register any
non-authorised manager (M) of B if its is not satisfied
that:
(a) M does not provide
services to clients, directly or indirectly,
or
(b) M will act in a manner
consistent with the “professional principles” set out in
Section 1(3).
(4) No manager of
B may be a person who has been disqualified from acting under Section
99.
(5) B will cease to be
entitled to carry on an activity under Section 13 of this Act if B
knowingly carries on reserved activities whilst a person, disqualified
under Section 99, continues to be a manager of
B.’.
Mr.
Djanogly:
Certain amendments in this group have been
proposed by the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales
and, because we are dealing with business organisations, I want to
declare that I am a member of the corporate finance faculty of the
ICAEW as a qualified corporate financier, although I am neither an
accountant nor a member of the full institute. The amendments cover
legal disciplinary partnerships and legal practice plus, and tie in
closely with part 5, which deals with alternative business structures.
I should say at the outset that amendment No. 256 should refer to
“individuals who are authorised persons” rather than
“authorised persons” and I apologise for any resulting
confusion.
The
amendments have been tabled on a probing basis, not least because many
of them cover the same point in a slightly different way, although the
principle
is the same. Amendment No. 256 is required as a consequence of new
clause 14, which was suggested to us by the ICAEW. The new clause
enables “practices to
have 25 per cent. or less on a head count of managers who are not
lawyers and who are not providing services to clients (so called Legal
Practice Plus.)”
It
would become operational on enactment alongside other forms of legal
disciplinary partnerships, which are partnerships between different
types of lawyers.
I
have received a lot of feedback on the issue from the commercial law
and accounting practitioners, and I am aware of a huge gap in
expectations that needs to be filled. We need to address the issue of
non-executive directors and other employees such as accountants,
economists and tax advisers and those who deal with administration and
back-up in servicing clients. For those people, the current system is
unrealistic. They may come from merchant banks in the City, where they
are among some of the highest earners, yet they are effectively
second-class citizens in law practices because they cannot take part in
the ownership of the firm.
Today, law firms realise the
benefits of bringing skilled outsiders into their organisations. There
was an interesting account earlier this month in an edition of the
Law Society
Gazette. A non-lawyer, William Arthur, former
director of professional practices at Barclays bank, was recruited as a
non-executive director by a Kent firm, Cripps Harries Hall. His brief
was comprehensive and demanding—to use his 30 years of
top-end commercial experience to steer his firm through the challenges
facing the legal profession today. Mr. Arthur
observed:
“Law
firms are getting bigger and bigger and are not small businesses
anymore. The market place is changing rapidly and they need to apply
the best business principles to everything they do. Many firms are
acknowledging that while they have exceptional professional skills,
they don’t always have the full suite of business skills and
experience to bring them to the front of the
field”.
Law
firms have employed non-lawyers in senior roles, such as directors of
IT or human resources, for many years. The appointment of non-executive
directors is a relatively new phenomenon, but one that should be
encouraged. We should assist that process, and ensure that people in
senior positions within law firms are not stigmatised or penalised
merely because they are not qualified lawyers. As I have shown, they
are often people of great experience with good skill sets, and are an
asset to law firms. The question is how those good intentions are to be
translated into the Bill. I accept that it is not a straightforward
issue.
12.15
pm
Amendment
No. 268, which deals with the licensing of alternative business
structures, was suggested by the City of London Law Society. The
amendment would ensure that a law firm, or a limited liability
partnership, would not become an alternative business structure solely
because it wished to appoint as managers non-lawyer professionals. It
is already clear that that is no longer a rare phenomenon, but an
increasing occurrence. The amendment would apply if those appointees
provided
only internal services to their firms and did not directly provide
services to clients of the
firm. Amendment No.
257, which was suggested by the Institute of Chartered Accountants,
would have a similar effect to that of amendment No. 268, from which it
is clear that accountants and lawyers are moving in the same
direction.
On Report
in the other place, Lord Hunt returned to concerns expressed in
Committee and tabled a similar amendment designed to enable legal
disciplinary practices to exist without having to be licensed if three
quarters of the partners were lawyers and there was no external
ownership. He envisaged that the Law Society would need a power to
establish a register of permitted non-lawyer partner-managers of firms
and to set requirements for eligibility to register.
Baroness
Ashton resisted the amendment, saying that the Government wished, as
far as possible, to create a level playing field between regulators,
offering all the potential to become licensing authorities. She would
not want to give one regulator a potential competitive advantage,
first, by virtue of reaching part of the alternative business structure
market before other regulators and, secondly, by avoiding the
additional statutory requirements that would otherwise apply to such
practices. She went on to say that if a body had non-lawyers in
positions of control it would be a licensable body. The framework is
already provided for low-risk bodies but the Government have set the
maximum limit for non-lawyer ownership at 10 per cent., and anything
above that would need full scrutiny. The amendment was
withdrawn.
Looking at
the matter now, I have to say that Baroness Ashton’s position
was somewhat regressive, and failed to understand how legal firms work
now, let alone how we should enable them to adapt and continue to
compete and excel in a competitive national and international
marketplace. That is the view of most people, including the Law Society
and the Conservative
party.
Yesterday, I
received a joint statement on the Bill from the Institute of Chartered
Accountants, the Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys, the Institute
of Trade Mark Attorneys and the Royal Institution of Chartered
Surveyors. I will not quote it all, but in particular it
states:
“There
should be immediate introduction of Clementi’s definition of
Legal Disciplinary Practices with minority non-client facing,
non-lawyer managers, helping enhance the service to consumers. This
would enable earlier, effective regulatory oversight of arrangements
already in place in all but
name.”
The fact that
non-legally qualified people who play a significant part in the running
of a legal practice cannot be a partner without invoking the licensing
provisions is a
problem.
Stephen
Hesford:
With respect to that point and that made by Lord
Hunt of Wirral in the other place, I find myself agreeing with Baroness
Ashton. The measures in new clause 14 and amendment No. 256 would be
bureaucratic; they would set up a new system—the so-called
register. It would lack transparency, which would drive a coach and
horses through one of the aims of the Bill—to bring in new
competition and promote consumer understanding of the legal services
and entities with which they deal.
Mr.
Djanogly:
I disagree. I would say that the proposed
measures would recognise and put into the regulatory structure a system
that, in effect, already exists. That is
important.
We
feel that it is wrong to lump non-legally qualified people with other
entities by putting them on the slow-track ABS timetable. The hon.
Member for Wirral, West mentioned that confusing issue. In some ways,
the proposed measures would make matters more straightforward, because
they would put such entities in the same position as lawyers who join
together, which is recognised in the Bill. They would differentiate low
and high-risk entities, as it were, which should then be considered in
relation to the slower-track provisions in part 5. The proposals would
remove the cumbersomeness that attaches to this part of the Bill and
unnecessary red tape.
The key protection issue is
that people’s access to justice is not attacked, and that ABSs
are not able to cherry-pick services to the detriment of the overall
position of consumer legal services. We should debate that when we come
to part 5. At the moment, we are concerned about lawyers not losing
out, compared with other professions, with regard to their ability to
run their practices better for the benefit of consumers.
There is a fundamental issue,
which has suddenly been given more prominence in relation to ABSs and
LDPs. The issue is whether legal disciplinary partnerships that do not
have external ownership will be enabled to operate sooner than 2011,
which is the likely date if they are allowed to operate only under the
ABS regime. The Government’s planning indicates that it is
unlikely that the LSB will be fully functioning before 2010. Other
regulators, including the Council for Licensed Conveyancers, may
already regulate LDPs that include non-lawyers. The Law Society
strongly supports permitting solicitor-led LDPs to operate under its
mainstream regulatory regime before that time. Some minor enhancements
may be needed to the Law Society’s regime to ensure that the SRA
will have the necessary powers to regulate non-lawyer partners, but
there should be no great difficulty. Indeed, the provisions of schedule
16 may already be
sufficient.
The Law
Society has pressed the Government for additions to its regulatory
powers for some years. The council decided some years ago that in
principle solicitors should be able to provide services to the public
through any regulated entity, subject to ensuring the necessary
consumer protection. The board worked up the issues further and
concluded that it would be sensible to create what the Law Society
subsequently called “Legal practice plus”, under which
non-lawyers would be enabled to become partners in a solicitors firm,
as long as it did not provide services normally forbidden to solicitors
firms, such as audit services, nor would they be able to have external
ownership.
That
proposal foundered on the Law Society’s inability to regulate
non-solicitor partners. It had hoped to do so on a contractual basis,
but leading counsel advised that that was impermissible. Accordingly,
the society asked the Government for additional regulatory powers to
enable it to establish a register of permitted non-solicitor partners
and to exercise all of the regulatory powers that apply to solicitors.
The Department for Constitutional Affairs was sympathetic to that, but
no suitable legislative opportunity arose until the Bill.
When the Bill
was introduced, many people were therefore disappointed to discover
that the Government intended that the only LDPs that could be regulated
outside the ABS regime were those consisting solely of partnerships
between different types of lawyers. That seemed to many, including the
Law Society and the ICA, to provide an unnecessary barrier to
establishing what Sir David Clementi called LDPs and the Law Society
called Legal Practice Plus.
It would seem
that the Government’s cautious attitude arose in part from the
belief that a more liberal approach would encounter substantial
difficulties in the House of Lords. The Conservatives thought that that
concern was misplaced. We knew that the other place would be concerned
about external ownership of law firms, and we and our noble Friends
were and are concerned with ABS implications for access to justice, to
which we shall come in part 5, but we did not think that the House of
Lords would have such major concerns about the proposition that a
minority of non-lawyers should be partners in a firm in order more
effectively to provide a range of services to clients. Lord Kingsland
and Lord Hunt both spoke in support of amendments to that effect, but
the Government—surprisingly, given their pro-consumer
stance—resisted
them.
It is important
to emphasise that such firms providing reserved legal services will
continue to need regulation by a legal regulator. Indeed, the Council
for Licensed Conveyancers can already regulate firms with non-lawyer
partners, as can some smaller bodies such as the Institute of Trademark
Attorneys and the Chartered Institute of Patent Agents. But significant
public and consumer benefit would arise from the Law Society having
such powers so that the SRA could regulate
them.
The amendments
suggested by the Law Society for Commons Committee, which we tabled as
amendments Nos. 259 and 262, were weaker than it would have liked. They
would enable the Law Society to regulate partnerships and other
incorporated bodies under its ordinary regulatory regime and corporate
bodies under its existing regulatory regime—that is, not as
ABSs, and thus much sooner—where they have a minority of
non-lawyer partners. Amendment No. 259 would exclude such bodies from
the ABS regime. It is needed because of the Government’s
approach whereby anything that could be an ABS must
be.
The amendments
would enable non-lawyers to become partners only so long as they are
not client-facing. That would meet the main concern of City firms that
wish to be able to make senior support professionals partners, but it
would not enable a high street firm, for example, to go into
partnership with an accountant and to provide tax advice primarily
through that accountant.
The Law
Society suggested a more limited approach because it had got nowhere
with broader amendments in the House of Lords and wanted to see whether
it could make at least some progress, albeit more limited than it would
have liked. It would much prefer non-lawyers to be allowed as partners
even if they provide services directly to clients, and that view
reflects the Conservative party’s position. The Law Society
would be happy if there were a simple majority of lawyers, but the ICA
would go even further. We can discuss its point of view later in part 5,
when we come to multidisciplinary
practice. I shall
comment on the other amendments grouped with those suggested by the Law
Society. We simply want to enable the SRA to regulate LDPs that are not
externally owned as soon as possible after Royal Assent rather than in
three or four years, and to ensure that the full range of public and
consumer protections are available in respect of all practices
providing reserved legal services.
The ICA-inspired amendments
Nos. 256 to 258 and new clause 14 are supplementary to
amendments Nos. 259 to 262. They have the benefit of
generalising the provision rather than making it applicable only to the
Law Society. We still need amendments Nos. 260 to 262 as well, because
without them the Law Society would have no power to regulate such a
body.
Commenting on
ICA new clause 14, the Law Society said that it would also be concerned
if it thought that the only basis on which non-lawyer managers could be
refused registration were those set out in paragraphs 3 and 4. It would
expect the SRA or any other regulator to wish to ensure that any
non-lawyer managers were fit and proper persons, and particularly that
they did not have any convictions for dishonesty. In the case of
non-lawyers from some other professions, such as accountancy, that
could be done fairly readily, since the other professional body has
requirements similar to those of the SRA. The non-law regulator would
need only to certify that the member concerned was of good standing.
That would not necessarily apply to all possible non-lawyer partners,
however; it is important that legal regulators would be able to impose
the appropriate requirements.
It might also be appropriate
for the legal regulators to require any non-lawyer partners or managers
to demonstrate understanding of the rules concerning the way in which
legal services must be provided—what would be described as the
conduct of business rules in other contexts. The Law Society would be
anxious to ensure that new clause 14 did not inadvertently limit a
proof-regulated entitlement and duty, to ensure that people holding
senior positions in law firms were personally suitable to do
so.
12.30
pm
This is a
complex matter, but I hope that, through my explanation of the
amendments, the Minister can see where we are coming from, as we do not
feel that the Bill addresses the issue correctly. I hope that the
Minister will take a positive
approach.
John
Hemming:
We generally support the principle of the
amendments. Most legal firms of any size have one or two senior
managers to do the accounts and manage the staff, infrastructure,
computers and so on. Under the amendments, those managers would be
regulated by the Law Society, so that they could be made a partner and
have a cut of the profits, which would be entirely reasonable. That
would not undermine the interests of the consumer, and it would achieve
the sort of balance that exists in many other organisations. From that
point
of view, the Government should accept the general principle of the
amendments, if not their detailed nuances, given that they are probing
amendments.
Bridget
Prentice:
The amendments are designed to take certain
practices outside the scope of the ABS regime in part 5 of the Bill.
They are familiar, because they are similar to those that were debated
in another place. To the hon. Members for Birmingham, Yardley and for
Huntingdon, I must say that I sympathise with some of the objectives of
the amendments, but I think that they would create some
difficulties.
Amendments Nos. 259 to 262
would exclude from part 5 any practice regulated by the Law Society in
which at least three quarters of the owners and managers are authorised
persons. I am a wee bit disappointed that the Law Society is still
unconvinced by the arguments that were made in the other place, because
our objections remain the same.
There are
problems with an amendment that seeks to depart, in various respects,
from the stated objective with regard to ABS. It would allow firms with
significant non-lawyer management and ownership to operate without the
oversight of the board or any of the guaranteed safeguards provided by
part 5. It would allow firms to be partially managed and owned by
non-lawyers, with no provision for a head of legal practice or a head
of finance and administration, or for fitness-to-own tests,
disqualification lists or enforcement powers over non-lawyers. That
would not be in line with Sir David Clementi’s recommendations;
nor would it be in the consumer interest. It would give no guarantee of
consumer protection, and it would not provide for a mechanism to ensure
that professional principles prevail.
Some changes could be made to
the Law Society’s rules to create further safeguards, but they
would have to be pretty complex and extensive—along the lines of
schedules 11 and 13, for example—to ensure fully effective
regulation of non-lawyer managers and owners. I am not sure that such
changes could be achieved through secondary legislation or that it
would be appropriate proceed in that
way.
A
key principle of part 5 is that the regulatory bodies must demonstrate
to the board that they are competent to enforce a complex, potentially
interventionist, regime. If they cannot do so, they will not be
designated as licensing authorities, and clearly, that must apply to
the Law Society as it would apply to any other regulatory
body.
That brings me
to another key principle that has been constant throughout our
development of policy on ABS, which is that there should be new
opportunities based on increasing competition and creating a level
playing field between regulators. The amendment would do the opposite.
It would allow the Law Society to regulate certain types of ABS firms
in advance of other regulators, without having to demonstrate to the
board that it is fit to do
so.
I turn now to
amendment No. 268, which was again proposed on behalf of the Law
Society. I suppose that it offers a less extreme alternative to
amendmentsNos. 259 to 262. This amendment also seeks to
exclude bodies with non-lawyer management from the ABS licensing
regime, but this time on the condition that those managers do not
provide services to clients.
Therefore, the practice would also not be bound by any of the safeguards
in part 5, and it could develop in advance of part 5 being implemented.
Once again, I am not convinced that that is an appropriate way forward
at this stage. I
shall now consider amendments Nos. 256 and 257, as well as new clause
14, which were inspired by the Institute of Chartered Accountants.
Again, the ICA has proposed a more detailed amendment, also with the
provision for 25 per cent. of non-lawyer managers. In this case,
certain additional requirements would apply to such practices, by
virtue of new clause
14.
Both the Law
Society and the ICA cite Sir David Clementi’s report, arguing
that the Government are not being sufficiently proactive in
facilitating all the different forms of legal disciplinary practices
identified by Sir David. We are, of course, facilitating those types of
practice, but I am not persuaded that we should seek to do so outside
the boundaries, safeguards and protections that part 5 will
give.
I am aware that
one incentive for proposing to facilitate the different forms of LDPs
is to avoid delaying the possibility of practices with non-lawyer
managers until part 5 is fully implemented. I have a lot of sympathy
with that view. I want to allow providers and consumers to take full
advantage, sooner rather than later, of the benefits that might be
delivered by those types of practice—indeed, by all types of ABS
firms.
I also
understand that the ICA has applied to become an authorised body for
probate services under schedule 9 to the Courts and Legal Services Act
1990. Obviously, I cannot comment on that application, as it is
currently being considered. However, I can say that, although I agree
that that development may happen some time after Royal Assent, if it
were to happen, that would be one means by which the ICA and its
members could become part of a more integrated practice ahead of the
formal commencement of part 5.
Apart from
that, however, in general terms, the management of law firms by
non-lawyers is a territory that is, in many respects, unfamiliar and
complex. Therefore, I am very keen to ensure that the implementation
and the safeguards are right. I believe that the presence of the board
is absolutely vital to ensuring that that happens, as are the
regulatory objectives; even more important is the need for effective
regulatory powers over
non-lawyers.
Of course
I recognise that the amendments proposed by the ICA make a concerted
effort to give effect to some of the safeguards that Sir David’s
report concluded should apply to LDPs, particularly in seeking to
ensure that those managers who are non-lawyers are fit and proper
persons. Even so, I must say to the hon. Member for Huntingdon that
there is a risk that these amendments would leave us without some of
the vital elements that part 5 will provide, which Sir David identified
as being essential for the effective regulation of firms with
non-lawyer
managers.
It
is not clear in the amendments where the boundaries of the new clause
would be or how it would be monitored or enforced. It leaves scope for
some pretty big discrepancies in terms of the way different approved
regulators might apply it. I do not think that the restriction of the
proposed exemptions to bodies in which non-lawyers do not provide
services to clients is practical or effective.
It still leaves some scope for uncertainty, regulatory gaps and
potentially even the emergence of multidisciplinary practices by the
back door. If a
body’s business is the provision of legal services to the
public, it is difficult to see where the line would be drawn. I
understand that the proposal would be intended to cover non-lawyers in
finance and IT functions, but an IT partner might be responsible for
using IT strategy to improve client service and business development.
They might even oversee the provision of IT services to clients in
conjunction with legal services. Unless we have a clear and fully
developed statutory framework, it is difficult to see how the
boundaries would be interpreted and enforced.
We might create a grey area of
regulated practice that could lead to regulatory gaps in places where
the part 5 safeguards ought rightly to apply. There is no provision for
a head of legal practice or a head of finance and administration, which
I believe are key to ensuring that the professional principles really
do apply on a practical day-to-day basis.
Mr.
Djanogly:
Presumably, if the outside professionals were in
a minority in the firm, they would be regulated as part of the
firm.
Bridget
Prentice:
No. Under part 5, once non-legal professionals
are involved, there must be a head of legal practice and a head of
finance and administration. I understand where the hon. Gentleman is
going, but the proposal is sufficiently far away from that provision to
make me doubt whether it would be
satisfactory.
Mr.
Djanogly:
The Minister will not find a law firm that does
not have a head of practice. She will hardly find one that does not
have a head of finance. She seems to be detached from the reality of
what is happening out
there.
Bridget
Prentice:
I like to think, given all our discussions with
all the legal professionals as well as the consumer groups, that I have
a pretty fair idea of what is going on out there in terms of the
provision of legal services. The safeguards in part 5 are an essential
part of the Bill. To move so far away from them would undermine that. I
am therefore reluctant to accept the
amendments.
I
recognise that that there is an attempt to ensure that non-lawyer
managers are fit and proper, but the only way to enforce that is to
apply sanctions against the body itself. In my view, robust enforcement
powers over the non-lawyer managers themselves are essential,
particularly as such managers may be not only individuals, but
companies.
Mr.
Djanogly:
What about the differentiation between an
individual who is regulated under another regulator—for
instance, an accountant going into the law firm—and a
non-regulated
individual?
Bridget
Prentice:
That is the key point. Let me finish on part 5.
In contrast to the proposed new clause, it creates statutory powers to
fine and discipline non-lawyer managers and to refer them to the board
for inclusion on a public disqualification register. Where
managers are also owners, as in partnerships and limited liability
partnerships, all the powers in schedule 13 will also apply.
Schedule 13 is quite a detailed and complicated part of the
Bill.
Part 5 will
ensure that all those powers apply in a way that the proposed new
clause would not. Part 5 is more facilitative than restrictive. ABS
firms often have a complex structure, and strong powers will sometimes
be required properly to regulate such practices. It is therefore
appropriate that the approved regulators should be able to satisfy the
board that they are competent to apply the requirements of part
5.
12.45
pm
Although I have
some sympathy with the institute’s position, I want the
licensing framework to ensure that practices with non-lawyer managers
or owners, and the bodies that regulate them, will be fully accountable
and subject to effective safeguards. Sympathetic as I am to concerns
about the desirability of encouraging ABS sooner rather than later, I
want to ensure that we get it right. Even with the amendments, I see no
obvious way to meet those concerns without creating other drawbacks
that will be just as problematic, if not more so. None the less, I want
to consider whether thereare alternative solutions. I
therefore ask the hon. Gentleman to withdraw the
amendment.
Mr.
Djanogly:
I find the Minister’s response rather
disappointing and, in some ways, frustrating. She started by saying
that she had some sympathy with the basic concept. She went on to say
that it would require complex and extensive changes. She went through
each of them, throwing in all the problems one could care to
mention.
They are
probing amendments. I am not saying that there are no problems with the
clauses. The Minister then sighed rather dutifully and told us why none
of it would work and why she was not totally convinced. Unlike the
union provisions, these provisions have been in place for a long time.
They were raised in the other place, there has been extensive
consultation on them, and they were discussed by Clementi. No one is
saying that they have a problem with the idea in principle. I might be
wrong, but no Members have said today that they have a problem of
principle with the concept.
Frankly, the Government have
had plenty of time to develop a framework, and I find the
Minister’s response rather weak. She now says that she wants to
consider the matter again. I am pleased to hear her say at least that
much, but here we are in Committee and we are no further forward. I
hear what she says, and we will follow it up. I beg to ask leave to
withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave,
withdrawn.
Clause
s
18
and 19
ordered to stand part of the
Bill.
| 
