§ The Solicitor-GeneralI beg to move Amendment No. 2, in page 2, line 14, leave out duties 'and insert reciprocal duties and responsibilities'.
Mr. Deputy SpeakerWith this we are to take Amendment No. 3, in
page 2, line 17, after regulations ', insert 'or undergoing such education or training; and'and Amendment No. 4, inpage 2, line 21, leave out from `terminated' to end of sub-paragraph (vi).
§ The Solicitor-GeneralThese amendments carry a little further some of the problems mentioned in the previous debate. Neither the Law Society nor the Government—nor, indeed, anyone else, so far as I am aware—desire the regulations to go wider than is necessary for the purpose. That entails at least two propositions: first, that they shall not attempt to regulate what happens in universities and polytechnics; second, that they shall not attempt to regulate the conduct of students or teachers in matters which are irrelevant to their admission as solicitors. But for the present they require to regulate the relationship of those giving and those taking articles, and they require to regulate the institutions which at present are under the control of the Law Society.
My hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, West (Mr. Price) moved an amendment in Committee, and these amendments are based on adaptations of that amendment. Their purpose is to delete subsection 2(a)(vi) of the new Section 2A, and deal with the overlap between that subsection and subsection 2(a)(iv) by amending the latter. In particular, these amendments remove the reference to "standards of conduct"—which was the burden of my hon. Friend's contribution in Committee.
I hope that the House will accept that the Law Society is not likely to abuse its powers even if these restrictions are not contained in the Bill. But I agree that it is probably better to restrict the powers in the Bill, provided that we do not find that we have defeated the whole object of the exercise by making them too restrictive.
758 It may be for the convenience of the House, Mr. Deputy Speaker, if my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, West agrees and you permit it, if I say something now about Amendment No. 10, which I think my hon. Friend proposes to move.
Mr. Deputy SpeakerOrder. Does the House wish to take Amendment No. 10? I am quite agreeable to that. Mr. Price.
§ Mr. Christopher PriceI should be happy for that to be done, Mr. Deputy Speaker—except that I should make it clear that the wording of Amendment No. 10—in page 2, line 38, at end insert:
'Provided that nothing in the training regulations made under this section shall apply to teachers and students at universities or other educational institutions, other than those institutions under the direct control of the society'—which I wanted to move after consultation, is not exactly as printed on the amendment paper. I should like to comment on that matter at the appropriate stage. I understand that consultations have taken place.
Mr. Deputy SpeakerThere is no reason why the hon. Gentleman should not state the case for his amendment if it is felt that it goes along with this group of amendments.
§ Mr. Christopher PriceI do not wish to do so as an intervention, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Perhaps the Solicitor-General should finish his remarks first.
Mr. Deputy SpeakerOrder. I understood that the Solicitor-General was asking whether we could take Amendment No. 10 with Amendments Nos. 2, 3 and 4.
§ Mr. Christopher PriceI agree to that, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
§ The Solicitor-GeneralPerhaps I may comment at this stage on Amendment No. 10. That may assist my hon. Friend later. I am sorry that I did not have an opportunity of consulting him on this proposal.
As I understand it, it is intended to impose a slight further restriction on the powers of the Law Society to make these regulations. I do not think that we are in disagreement about its essential purpose. It may at present—though I understand 759 that my hon. Friend may wish to move his amendment with slightly differing wording—go wider than any of us would seek to go. That is, first, because we have to bear in mind that there may be a need to prescribe a period for which candidates for admission should undergo their training. Secondly, there might be a need to exercise a control over students if they are undergoing a course while they are in articles. Even the Ormrod Committee had it fairly clearly in mind that the Law Society would want to exercise a vigorous control over the system of legal education precisely in order to achieve the objects we have been discussing tonight. In the summary of its conclusions, at Recommendation No. 22, it said:
The professional bodies must have a powerful influence over the courses and must be satisfied that they are providing an adequate training.I am sure that my hon. Friend would not wish to impose a restriction on the Law Society which would prevent it from doing that where it seemed to the Law Society to be necessary.I say again that there is no intention to intervene in the affairs of the universities and polytechnics. I hope that, in view of what I have been able to say and the Government amendments, my hon. Friend will feel that it is not necessary to pursue his amendment. Obviously I will listen to anything that he says.
§ 11.15 p.m.
§ Sir Michael HaversOne would have thought that many lawyers would have been present for the debate on the Solicitors (Amendment) Bill. However, this appears to be a subsidiary branch of a teachers' seminar.
I do not understand the anxieties. I should have thought that all the arrangements being covered in Clause 2 could be dealt with by a condition precedent in training regulations. However, if the anxieties exist, and if my construction of the clause is wrong, by all means let us have any anxieties and doubts removed. The words are clear. If anxieties exist, let us seek to set them at rest, because I do believe that the Law Society and those who drafted the Bill intended that, for example, university dons should be subject to any control by the Law Society. I as a lawyer looking at it from a construc- 760 tion point of view, do not believe that it is necessary, but I would not oppose it.
§ Mr. Christopher PriceIt is important that we are having this debate, because it became clear in Committee that many of the ramifications of these subsections have not been properly thought out. In the light of developments, that will take place as the various recommendations of the Ormrod Committee are put into effect. As my hon. and learned Friend said in Committee, we do not know at what pace or in which directions developments will proceed. It is already clear that, arising from the committee's recommendations, an increasing number of solicitors will do more and more of their training in educational institutions rather than under article. That was the burden on one half of the Ormrod Committee's recommendations.
I thank my hon. and learned Friend for tabling the Government amendments. Even if the Ormrod Committee had not reported and there was no question of universities and polytechnics being more involved, these are proper amendments. I am not sure that a body like the Law Society should properly concern itself with standards of conduct of teachers and students. It has strict control over the entry point into the profession, in terms of conduct and examinations. That a body like the Law Society should wish to go beyond that and regulate standards of conduct of teachers and students marks these teachers and students off from other teachers and students. The House will agree that it is proper that we should accord to all teachers and students much the same rights to be regulated by their education institutionals and not by professional organisations such as the Law Society. I therefore welcome the amendments.
But the situation is complicated somewhat by the fact that these subsections are trying to give the Law Society control, first, over the relationship between articled solicitors and solicitors who are responsible for their training, and, secondly, over those institutions over which the Law Society has absolute direct control. The difficulty is that it does not say so in the Bill. The implication is that it should be the responsibility of the Law Society in making training regulations to make regulations which affect teachers and students at other institutions. My 761 hon. and learned Friend asks me to accept the assurance that the Law Society would not dream of interfering with the rights of students and teachers at universities and polytechnics. I am not happy to do that at the moment.
I turn now to my Amendment No. 10, which we are also discussing. Because of the printing difficulties it has not appeared in quite the form I should have liked. It should read
Provided that nothing in the training regulations made under subsection 2(a)(iv) and (v) of this section shall apply to teachers and students at universities or other educational institutions, other than those institutions under the direct control of the Society.The first three subsections refer either to education generally or to examinations and tests and to the situation where the Law Society's training regulations quite properly impinge on the activities of universities and polytechnics. The Law Society might wish to state, quite properly, that examinations and tests over which certain universities and polytechnics have control shall be acceptable to it, and will qualify a student to exemption from certain parts of its courses. That is perfectly proper and is done by other organisations. But paragraphs (iv) and (v), which should not apply to students and teachers at universities and polytechnics, refer to qualifications and, if we accept my hon. and learned Friend's amendments, all persons undertaking to undergo training for the purposes of the regulations. They then deal with the situation in which articles might be discharged or education or training under the regulations might be terminated. That is all very well at the Law Society's institutions, but as a result of Ormrod the education of more and more solicitors will take place in universities and polytechnics where there are well-established procedures for the termination of students' courses and for the approval of the qualifications and reciprocal duties and responsibilities of students and teachers. It is improper for a professional body such as the Law Society to enter into this sphere.It is particularly important that we get the matter straight now, because there is a certain amount of difficulty over the relationship between professional bodies and universities and polytechnics. The professional bodies are more and more trying to use the universities to provide 762 exemption examinations for their own purposes, and in that way exerting subtle pressure on our educational institutions to provide courses which have less education and rather more training in them, and to divert universities and other educational institutions such as polytechnics and technical colleges from designing balanced courses, as they think fit, to designing courses to the specific recipe of the professional associations. That is wrong. Our educational institutions should design educational courses.
My hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor-General says that it would be unthinkable that the Law Society should seek to interfere with students or teachers at universities or polytechnics, but I am not sure that it is as easy as that. We mentioned many times in Committee that we are in an experimental period, with Ormrod and various versions of Ormrod. We also said many times that we must get the matter right in the Bill. We shall not have another such measure, because later in the Bill we give the Law Society the right to raise its own fees when it likes, without having to come to the House whenever it wishes to do so.
We might have a situation in which quite a number of solicitors undergoing training are at one and the same time articled and students at universities and polytechnics. We need something in the Bill to make it absolutely clear that, although the Law Society has every right to regulate the situation between an articled clerk and his seniors in the profession, it has no right, having perhaps exercised some jurisdiction and attempted either to impose discipline upon the student or the solicitor in charge of him, then to tell that educational institution where that student may be "We do not want this young man to be a solicitor any more, so throw him off your course." Under the present wording, it seems to have a right to do that, because the Bill makes no distinction between the society's educational institutions, over which it is proper for it to have control, and the vast majority of other educational institutions in which solicitors will be trained, where it is improper for the society to have any legal control.
It would subvert the whole delicate balance of disciplinary functions and agreements that have grown up in our universities and polytechnics over the years if 763 suddenly the House were to say "All students are equal, except law students who have said that they wish to be solicitors, in which case they have a double jeopardy hanging over them—the first being the disciplinary functions of the university and the second being the disciplinary functions of their future professional association, the Law Society."
I am not sure that I am inclined to accept the second-hand assurance—I do not say that in any derogatory sense—of my hon. and learned Friend. Of course, the Law Society would not dream of trespassing upon this territory, but I am afraid that that is what we are giving it permission to do in the Bill. Although we have grouped my amendment with the three amendments of my hon. and learned Friend, and although I thank my hon. and learned Friend for the work that he has put into his amendments as a result of the amendment I tabled in Committee, I do not think that the job is finished until we make the position clear in black and white. For that reason I stand as yet unconvinced that Amendment No. 10 is not a necessary part of the Bill so that it is made crystal clear where the Law Society's route runs and where it does not.
§ 11.30 p.m.
§ The Solicitor-GeneralI do not wish to speak in these debates more than is necessary, but I propose to indicate to my hon. Friend through you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, the way in which my mind is working in response to what he has said. I had hoped that I had gone a long way towards meeting the points that he raised, and he has been kind enough to say that that is so. Obviously there is a problem when part of the professional qualifications of entrants to any profession are obtained at a university or polytechnic since the university and the professional body have a common interest in what happens in the course.
If the Law Society is to accept a particular university course as part of the qualifications for admission to the solicitors' profession, it would not be unreasonable for it to discuss with the university the type of course that it has in mind and some of the matters that it wants taught. Of course, neither the Law Society nor the university has power at the moment—and I would not have 764 thought that they should have—to direct the other on such matters. What is important is that where we are feeling our way towards a new kind of entrance qualification—
§ Mr. Christopher PriceIf my hon. and learned Friend thinks about his statement relating to examinations he will realise that technically he is wrong. As I understand it, the university has absolute autonomy, if it wishes to exercise it, over the courses that it puts forward. If it puts forward courses which the Law Society feels do not come up to the sort of standards that it has in mind, it will stand in jeopardy of running courses for solicitors which the professional association of solicitors does not accept. It is important to get it straight that the university has responsibility for its courses and that it has autonomy in putting them forward. It may consult a professional body, but it is in no sense an equal partnership. The university has the initiative and the autonomy remains with the educational institution.
§ The Solicitor-GeneralI accept that. It would be open to a university to say that it was not going to run any law courses, or a university might decide to run courses which did not meet with the disapprobation of the Law Society. If it did, it might be that it would not have many candidates seeking to take its courses. I would have hoped that there could be a relationship of colleagues and friends seeking a common objective and not of one body or the other seeking to impose its will on the other. The worst that could happen is that in the end they would part company and that part of the training would never be adequately covered.
My hon. Friend said that it would be undesirable for the Law Society to say to a university that a certain candidate should not be permitted to complete his course. Again that is right. But it might be wise for the Law Society to say to both the candidate and the university authorities that for whatever reason, and assuming for the moment that there were good reasons, "We have decided that this person should not be admitted as a solicitor." If he completes his course, he still will not be admitted as a solicitor. Both he and the university might reflect whether it is worse for the final result to come when he has completed the course. 765 That is the kind of relationship that I would hope would develop. That being so, I would have hoped that we would not impose restrictions in the Bill on this kind of relationship.
I do not think it is imposing a restriction to say that the Law Society shall be empowered to make regulations which, for example, govern law students in certain respects. It may be that if my hon. Friend and I had all the time in the world we could together work out a somewhat complicated formula which, we would hope, met all the situations that were likely to arise. We do not have that time. When my hon. Friend says that ever debate, perhaps that is so. I certainly hope that it is not the last debate of this kind that we ever have. I shall do my this is the last Bill of this kind we will best to ensure that it is not.
§ Sir Michael HaversI have a little concern about the circumstances that the hon. and learned Gentleman envisages where the Law Society may say to the university "This is not the sort of student we want". I have looked carefully at Clause 2. If the Solicitor-General is saying that because, since he was admitted as a student at the university or polytechnic, a person has been convicted of a serious criminal offence and therefore would not be admitted, I understand. It cannot, however, be any circumstances of educational qualifications that the hon. and learned Gentleman is speaking of. He should make that clear.
§ The Solicitor-GeneralI am grateful to the hon. and learned Gentleman. If I failed to make that clear, I am obliged to him for assisting me to do so. I had precisely that situation in mind, certainly not that the person's academic standards were inadequate.
§ Mr. Christopher PriceI understand both situations. It is my view that even if there was an offence which the Law Society felt disqualified the student from being a solicitor and the university perhaps took a different view, it would be absolutely improper at that stage for the Law Society to intervene. May I put it this way. Can the Solicitor-General name any other professional association which takes upon itself this responsibility of reflecting on students while in statu pupillari, as it were?
§ The Solicitor-GeneralI would have thought that the answer was "Every profession". Certainly the Institute of Chartered Accountants expects—
§ Sir Michael HaversThe Bar.
§ The Solicitor-GeneralThe hon. and learned Gentleman says "The Bar". That is probably true too.
§ Mr. Christopher PriceI do not want this to become a Tweedledum-Tweedledee act.
§ Mr. PriceThe Bar is in a slightly different position because people tend to do their degrees first. All I am saying is that in the circumstances of Ormrod, while people are leading up to an educational qualification I know of no professional association that intervenes at that point. Bodies will certainly intervene later and disbar the individual from their qualification, but to intervene halfway through a course, as it were, seems to me to be quite improper.
§ The Solicitor-GeneralCertainly it would not be unknown for the Inns of Court to say of a particular candidate halfway through his university course "He will cease to be a student at this Inn" for whatever reasons might seem to be good to them. That would be a sensible and merciful course to take. To keep silent until, in the expectation of being admitted to a profession, the student had completed his course and then to tell him that he would not be admitted would be cruel. For that reason it seems to me that, so far from being improper, it would be absolutely the proper thing for the Law Society to do in that kind of situation.
It seems that my hon. Friend and I may not be wholly at one in what would be an appropriate action for the Law Society to take. That is an additional reason for thinking that we should not too readily seek to circumscribe its powers. The relationship at this stage is rather delicate, but it will develop. We shall all learn in the course of its development, and if I can assist in ensuring that there are further debates in the House on the subject as and when appears necessary, I shall certainly do so.
§ Amendment agreed to.
767
§
Amendments made: No. 3, in page 2 line 17, after "regulations", insert
'or undergoing such education or training; and'.
§ No. 4, in page 2, line 21, leave out from "terminated" to end of subparagraph (vi)—[The Solicitor-General.].
§ Mr. Christopher PriceOn a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I agreed that my Amendment No. 10 should be taken with Amendment No. 2, but does that mean that the Question will not be put on Amendment No. 10?
Mr. Deputy SpeakerThe hon. Gentleman may have his amendment put to the House, by all means, if the House agrees to the alteration in the wording suggested by him.
§
Amendment proposed: No. 10 in page 2, line 38, at end insert—
Provided that nothing in the training regulations made under this subsection 2(a)(iv) and (v) of this section shall apply to teachers and students at universities or other educational institutions, other than those institutions under the direct control of the society".—[Mr. Christopher Price].
§ Amendment negatived.