Legal Services Act 2007 (Appeals from Licensing Authority Decisions) (General Council of the Bar) Order 2018 — House of Lords, 2018-02-01
Topic: Law and Crime
Donald Thomas (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I really have no objection to the first statutory instrument; it seems quite appropriate that, where there are appeals relating to licensing authority decisions, they should be made to the First-tier Tribunal. I note that, when there was a consultation on these provisions, the only response was from the Bar Council, which agreed that the draft order was appropriate. Another point is that the number of appeals is very low—it is planning for appeal volumes of less than 10 cases per year, which is a very small part of the work for the First-tier Tribunal The order on modification of functions, however, is of a very different nature. We were discussing yesterday—and will be discussing for the next couple of months—the problems of delegated legislation and, in particular, the ability to have tertiary, not secondary, legislation; that is, the power to make rules and regulations delegated to a body outside the ambit of parliamentary scrutiny. The Bar Services Board in particular will, I believe, be outside statutory oversight by this Parliament. Therefore, one has to look very carefully at what it proposes to do. Will the Minister confirm that the Bar Standards Board has said that it wants these powers but is not going to exercise them? That appears to be the nature of what is said in the policy background and in the papers supplied in connection with this application The powers granted to the Bar Standards Board to make rules and regulations—tertiary legislation—are very extensive. Article 3 of the order deals with appeals. Article 4 is concerned with intervention powers that would permit the Bar Standards Board to enter premises, seize relevant papers and prevent a person practising. These are significant powers. Article 5 allows the Bar Standards Board to introduce rules and regulations that will require an authorised person—an individual barrister—to provide information and documents for the purpose of ascertaining whether any rules, regulations or code issued by the Bar Council are being complied with. In other words, it is a power to seize documents and to make a person respond to questioning about the nature of those documents. Article 6 is just out of this world. It gives the Bar Standards Board power to make disciplinary arrangements, which include the possibility of imposing fines not exceeding £50 million. Could an individual barrister have to pay a fine of £50 million? What sort of world is the Ministry of Justice living in? After the cuts it has inflicted on the Bar over many years, it is now lashing out £50-million fines and fines not exceeding £250 million for entities. These are just ridiculous figures Article 8 allows the Bar Standards Board, under the aegis of the Bar Council, to make practice rules requiring the formulation of a list of disqualified persons. The order allows the Bar Council, through the Bar Standards Board, to make compensation arrangements. It simply disregards the fact that members of the Bar are not allowed to hold clients’ money in any way at all, yet there are extensive compensation provisions in Article 9 of this proposed order. It seems to me that these powers are way over the top. If the Bar Standards Board is just saying, "We would like these powers but do not intend to use them", the whole exercise is complete nonsense.