SOLICITORS ACT 1974 (AMENDMENT) (Hansard, 24 February 1976)

§ Mr. Ken Weetch (Ipswich)

I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to amend the Solicitors Act 1974 so as to allow persons other than solicitors, barristers and notaries public to draw up certain documents. I seek to amend the Solicitors Act 1974, particularly Section 22 which relates to those persons who are allowed to conveyance property for fee, gain or reward. In a nutshell, I seek to argue that the classes of persons allowed to conveyance registered property or land with a registered title should be significantly widened.

I am aware that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has announced that the subject of conveyancing will be embraced by the Royal Commission on the legal profession. I could have rested on that announcement and taken the matter no further, but I welcome the setting up of the Royal Commission with certain qualifications. Frequently, the Royal Commissions have been used as an instrument of delay, and there are many problems concerned in legal matters where the shoe pinches very badly and where we need reform. I am suggesting that it might be a very good idea if we had a quick interim report on conveyancing matters.

I first want to make a number of broad remarks about the present position which will perhaps put the purposes of the Bill in a proper context. There is now, without any shadow of doubt, very considerable and justifiable dissatisfaction with the high conveyancing charges which have to be paid by ordinary people up and down the country in connection with moving house.

I make this point not only because of the scores of bitter letters I have received but because it is a matter of public record. In 1969 and 1971 reports were published which stemmed from the investigations of the National Board for Prices and Incomes, and the conclusions of those reports were broadly threefold.

The first conclusion was that there was a need for fundamental reform. The second conclusion was that charges were too high. The third conclusion was that charges were excessive in relation to the 198 work done, especially in connection with the work relating to registered property, where, it was stated in the reports, a mass of purely routine work was involved, with standard answers to standard questions on standard forms, which emerged, like a winding journey of a country bus, through long-winded standard procedures.

After these reports, nothing was done to alter the situation except to abolish scale charges in 1973, and this brought no improvement at all. In fact, a report by the Consumers' Association in the summer of last year indicated that the situation had further deteriorated.

The whole situation stems from monopoly power effectively given to solicitors in Section 22 of the Act of 1974, and before that under Section 20 of the Act of 1957, in relation to preparing certain documents of transfer.

I am putting to the House that this monopoly power has had quite iniquitous effects for every householder who wishes to move. First, there are excessive charges. Secondly, it enables the Law Society to hound competitors, who can offer the same service at half the price, through the criminal courts of this land for nothing more than trying to offer an alternative service. Thirdly, it provides a feather bed of such comfort that it has prevented any significant improvement in the reform of the conveyancing framework.

Conveyancing still belongs to the era of medieval history and the putting-out system, rather than to a modern property-owning industrial democracy.

In the Bill I seek to bring about reform by concentrating attention on registered land only. I am advised by solicitors—and this is the best advice I could get from the legal profession itself—that conveyancing property with a registered title is technically very much simpler and that the problems likely to arise would not for the most part be legal. In fact, I am advised that the whole purpose of the Land Registry is to make the process simpler, with lower costs for the consumer.

Unfortunately, this is not occurring in relation to lowering the cost. One serious aspect of the Consumers' Association report was that charges for conveyancing registered and unregistered land were 199 coming closer together. If the purpose of registration is to make things cheaper, this trend, if continued, would mean that the Land Registry could be closed down altogether, because, in relation to lowering the cost to the consumer, its efficacy is diminishing.

In removing registered land from the monopoly—which is what I seek to do in the Bill—I am able to anticipate the argument that conveyancing is far too esoteric a matter for ordinary mortals, however intelligent, to understand and to put into operation. There may, indeed, be difficult questions with unregistered land with an abstract of title, but having been provided with a system of registration to make things simpler, I am suggesting that advantage should be taken of it by the consumer.

I am, therefore, proposing that persons other than solicitors, barristers and notaries public should be allowed to conveyance registered property under certain safeguards, and I am proposing that registered land be totally taken out of the monopoly.

This brings me to my final point. I cannot, within the confines of a Ten-Minute Bill, construct an edifice of detailed supervision and control, but I am suggesting that advantage should be taken of a very important piece of consumers' legislation already on the statute book—the Consumer Credit Act. Any-

200 one who wishes to convey registered property must possess a licence issued by the Director-General of Fair Trading under the Consumer Credit Act. Before this is issued, all persons or companies have to be scrutinised in a very detailed way on all matters affecting competent professional and financial probity.

In the Bill I have settled for half a loaf, and without any Biblical miracle it should grow into a whole loaf, because, as time goes on and more and more land is registered, the monopoly will die a natural death. This would be in the interests of consumer freedom, lower prices and structural reform, because the present stifling restrictive practice should die, and when it does, there will be few mourners at its funeral.