§ '.—(1) Section 23 of the Courts and Legal Services Act 1990 (recommendations of the Legal Services Ombudsman) is amended as follows.
§ (2) In subsection (1)(c) (written report of investigation to be sent to person with respect to whom recommendation is made), after "subsection (2)" insert "or an order under subsection (2A)".
§ (3) In paragraph (e) of subsection (2) (recommendation that costs be paid by person or body to which recommendation under paragraph (c) or (d) applies), for "which a recommendation under paragraph (c) or (d) applies" substitute "pay compensation under paragraph (c) or (d)".
§
(4) After that subsection insert—
(2A) If after completing any investigation under this Act the Ombudsman considers that, rather than recommending the taking of any action by any person or professional body under paragraph (c), (d) or (e) of subsection (2), he should make an
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order requiring the taking of that action by the person or body—
§ (5) In subsections (3) and (4) (reports), after "recommendation" (in each place) insert "or order".
§ (6) In subsection (6) (duty to have regard to Ombudsman's report), for "subsection (1)(b) or (c)" substitute "subsection (1)(b), (c) or (d)".
§ (7) For the sidenote substitute "Recommendations and orders.".'.—[Mr. Vaz.]
§ Brought up, and read the First time.
Mr. Deputy SpeakerWith this, it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments:
Government new clause 9—Funding of Ombudsman by professional bodies
Government new clause 10—The Commissioner
Government new clause 11—Commissioner's functions.
Government new schedule 1—Legal services complaints commissioner
Government amendment No. 86.
§ Mr. VazThe Government have tabled four new clauses and a new schedule to amend the powers of the legal services ombudsman, and to establish a new post of legal services complaints commissioner. New clause 8 will amend section 23 of the Courts and Legal Services Act 1990, which established the office of the legal services ombudsman. The ombudsman currently oversees the handling of complaints against solicitors, barristers, legal executives and licensed conveyancers by the professional bodies responsible for setting and maintaining standards of conduct and service within the legal professions.
The 1990 Act allows for new bodies to come within its remit by order of the Lord Chancellor—for example, when new bodies are authorised to grant rights of audience or rights to conduct litigation to their members. The ombudsman can investigate allegations about the way in which a professional body has handled a complaint against one of its members. Section 23 of the 1990 Act sets out what the ombudsman's powers are once an investigation has been completed. These include, in subsection (2), making recommendations to the person complained about, or to the relevant professional body, or to both. Those recommendations can include the payment of compensation to the complainant, and payment to cover the costs of making the allegation.
Under the current legislation, the ombudsman can make recommendations to a person or professional body only about the action that should be taken. The recommendations are not enforceable. That has not caused a problem with the professional bodies hitherto: in every case since the ombudsman scheme began in 1991, the professional bodies have complied with the ombudsman's recommendations. There are, however, a few cases each year where lawyers have refused to accept such a recommendation.
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Under the current legislation, the ombudsman has very little power to take the matter further. She can only publicise the fact that a recommendation has not been followed—usually by taking out an advertisement in a local newspaper—and then recover from the person involved the costs that she has expended.
The new clause will allow the ombudsman to make a binding order in cases in which she considers that appropriate, which will be enforceable through the courts. Before such a binding determination was made, however, the person or professional body would be entitled to appear before the ombudsman to make representations about the decision.
This extension to the ombudsman's powers will be a welcome addition to her armoury of powers to tackle those who are not providing an adequate service to their clients. It should assist clients in recovering compensation that is due to them and which they would not otherwise receive. The ombudsman will not be obliged to use the powers, but the reserve power will be of value in appropriate cases. The current ombudsman, Ann Abraham, does an excellent job, and I pay tribute to her. I am sure that the extra powers will enable her to carry out her duties even more effectively in future.
The clause also makes a minor amendment to section 23, so that the professional bodies have a duty to have regard to the conclusions and recommendations made by the ombudsman in reports. There was an error in the original drafting of section 23(6). In reality that was not a problem, as the professional bodies have always complied with the ombudsman's recommendations, but it is right to take this opportunity to clarify the legislation.
I shall deal briefly with amendment No. 86, which repeals references in the Courts and Legal Services Act 1990 to consent of the Treasury being required when the Lord Chancellor determines the amount of pay and pensions for the ombudsman and her staff. That is in line with current Treasury policy.
New clause 9 inserts a new sub-paragraph into schedule 3 to the Courts and Legal Services Act 1990. The schedule deals with, among other things, the remuneration, staffing and financial provisions of the office of the legal services ombudsman. The purpose of the new clause is to give the Lord Chancellor the power to require any professional body to make payments to the legal services ombudsman in respect of any of the expenses of the ombudsman. I remind the House that the current relevant professional bodies are the Bar Council, the Law Society, the Institute of Legal Executives and the Council for Licensed Conveyancers.
The Government do not intend to use this power unless the Lord Chancellor appoints the legal services complaints commissioner; I will speak about that post in detail later. The commissioner will not be appointed unless and until the professional bodies are seen not to be making progress with their complaints systems. It is only right that if the commissioner is appointed, and therefore the professional bodies are failing, they should be required to contribute towards the body that oversees complaints handling. The practice elsewhere is for ombudsman schemes to be financed directly by the professions concerned.
However, I reiterate that the Government would not use this power unless and until a commissioner were appointed, and then only for those bodies that were 1018 subject to his remit. If any professional body were liable to make payments in this regard, those payments would, of course, be proportionate to the size of the body and the number and nature of the complaints generated. The Lord Chancellor will have similar powers to require payments from the professional bodies to fund the commissioner.
New clause 10 gives the Lord Chancellor power to appoint a legal services complaints commissioner. That is, in part, in response to hon. Members who have been pressing the Government for some time to intervene in the handling of complaints about the legal professions, in particular the Office for the Supervision of Solicitors. My predecessor and I have received many complaints including those from my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport; the right hon. Member for South?West Surrey (Mrs. Bottomley); the hon. Member for South Dorset (Mr. Bruce); my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, South (Mr. Sutcliffe), and the hon. Member for Southend, West (Mr. Amess). I should point out, however, that the commissioner will not be brought into being by the passing of the Bill. The clause simply gives the Lord Chancellor the power to set up the post, if and when it is necessary. I will explain the reasons for this later.
The commissioner will have powers to intervene effectively to improve standards of complaints handling by the legal professional bodies. New clause 11—in particular, subsection (2)—sets out in detail the functions and the powers of the commissioner. In addition to the investigatory powers specified in subsections (2)(a) and (2)(b), the commissioner will have powers to make recommendations about the arrangements for the handling of complaints and any aspect of complaints handling. The commissioner will also have powers to impose targets on the authorised bodies for the handling of complaints. Those targets could include the timeliness of the handling of complaints; customer perceptions of the complaints system; and perhaps targets for training lawyers in complaints handling.
Subsection (2)(e) gives the commissioner power to require a professional body to produce a plan setting out how it intends to improve its complaints handling performance to meet such targets. If a professional body fails to submit such a plan when required to do so by the commissioner, or, having submitted such a plan, it fails to handle complaints in accordance with it, subsection (3) gives the commissioner the power to levy fines on that body.
Subsection (4) provides that, where the commissioner requires a professional body to pay a penalty, he shall afford the body a reasonable opportunity of appearing before him to make representations. It will be for the House to decide, if and when the commissioner is set up, what the penalty should be.
The new post will be financed by a levy on the authorised bodies. I will set out the background which I believe justifies these measures. The provisions on the legal services complaints commissioner will, however, come into force only if it appears to the Lord Chancellor that complaints about members of any professional body are not being handled effectively and efficiently. The Lord Chancellor would use those powers only after a great deal of thought and with a great deal of reluctance. We have not spelt out in the legislation precisely the circumstances in which the Lord Chancellor might use those powers. It is impossible to predict all the circumstances in which the 1019 public interest might be best served by using these powers. But the professional bodies will, rightly, wish to know what performance is expected of them.
First, I can assure the House that the Lord Chancellor has no plans to use these powers within 18 months of Royal Assent. In particular, he will want to see the annual report of the Office for the Supervision of Solicitors for the calendar year 2000 in spring 2001. These are reserve powers and we wish to give the OSS in particular the opportunity to put its house in order. I shall shortly be seeing the director of the OSS. I know that the Law Society recently published a report from Ernst and Young which set out a blueprint for a more efficient system of dealing with complaints against solicitors.
Secondly, we intend to tell the professional bodies about the sort of performance that would ensure that the Government will not use these powers. We will meet representatives of the Law Society and the other professional bodies during the next few months to find out how they view their present performance and what improvements might reasonably be expected. In the light of those consultations, the Government will give their view on what performance would persuade the Lord Chancellor not to use his powers.
These consultations will principally concern the Law Society, which is by far the largest professional body and which generates by far the largest volume of complaints. But we will also consult the Bar Council, the Institute of Legal Executives and the Council for Licensed Conveyancers, to whom the legislation equally applies. We will involve the legal services ombudsman in this process because of her considerable knowledge of complaints procedures and the professional bodies' performance.
It may be helpful if I explain the background to our proposal to take those powers. The OSS, which is an integral part of the Law Society and which has been set up to deal with complaints of inadequate professional service and complaints of misconduct against solicitors, is at present failing to deal adequately with complaints of inadequate professional service. There is a backlog of 9,000 complaints, and it is increasing.
Complaints are not allocated to a case officer for six months. The OSS is the most recent attempt by the Law Society to get its complaints systems right. Like the previous attempts—most notably, the Solicitors Complaints Bureau—it has not been seen to deliver any sustained improvement and there is a good deal of public concern. As I said earlier, certain members of the House are well aware of that and have written to me on behalf of constituents who are extremely concerned by their dealings with OSS. Indeed, the matter has been raised on the Floor of the House at Question Time.
There are arguments that the Government should put the regulation of the legal professions on a statutory basis, perhaps similar to that of the Financial Services Authority or the Immigration Services Commissioner proposed in the Immigration and Asylum Bill. The Government do not accept that argument. Self-regulation remains the best option for the legal professions, whose members must at times oppose the Government strenuously in pursuit of citizens' rights.
1020 Nevertheless, there is a public interest in the efficient handling of complaints by the legal professional bodies. That is why the independent legal services ombudsman was set up by the Courts and Legal Services Act 1990. Although the ombudsman can and does make general recommendations to the legal professional bodies on their complaints handling arrangements, the office exists principally to ensure that individual complaints are effectively dealt with. Its primary remit is to examine and adjudicate on appeals by dissatisfied complainants from the complaints mechanisms of the legal professional bodies. That arrangement is no longer enough. That is why we are introducing legislation to make provision for the new body.
There are signs that the Law Society wants to put its own house in order. A new scheme for the handling of complaints has been put together by the OSS. The Law Society has also recently increased the budget for the OSS. We are not proposing to appoint a commissioner, and therefore bring those powers into force, unless and until an authorised body is clearly failing to make substantial progress in improving its complaints record. We believe those proposals will encourage the Law Society to ensure that the profession makes real improvements in complaints handling.
Turning to the detail of the new clause, our view is that, in practice, the new post, if it is necessary to bring it into force, is likely to be held by the person holding the office of the legal services ombudsman, because the commissioner's role overlaps with some functions of the ombudsman. For that reason, the legislation mirrors the provisions in the 1990 Act relating to the appointment of the ombudsman.
As in the 1990 Act, the proposed legislation provides for the commissioner to be appointed for not more than three years, in accordance with the Nolan guidelines. The commissioner shall be eligible for reappointment on conclusion of that term. As in the 1990 Act, the commissioner may not be a member of the legal profession so that the public can be assured of the impartiality of the postholder. The new clause also gives effect to a new schedule, which makes further provision about practical arrangements of the commissioner's office.
Hon. Members may be concerned that we have introduced these powers to the Bill at a relatively late stage; that is why I have explained the proposals in details. My justification for doing so is that the deterioration in the performance of the OSS has become far more marked recently, and it has recently become clear that the legal services ombudsman will signal to the Lord Chancellor in her annual report at the end of this month that the OSS has not made sufficient progress.
In my view, it would be wrong not to act immediately because we have a clearly appropriate legislative vehicle. The new powers will help to achieve better performance in the handling of complaints, which I know is the aim of the Law Society and the other professional bodies. They are proportionate, appropriate and timely and will be welcomed by the Members of the House and the public at large.
§ Mr. GarnierAs the Minister said so disarmingly and candidly a moment ago, the new proposals are late, and have been submitted to the public gaze only over the past 1021 10 days or so. I acquit the Minister of presenting them late, because he joined the Department only recently. Moreover, he was courteous enough to invite my hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath (Mr. Hawkins), the hon. Member for Torridge and West Devon (Mr. Burnett) and me to his office last week so that we could go through some of the new clauses and amendments that the Government were proposing to table.
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Having acquitted the Minister, however, I cannot acquit the Government of not having come to the aid of the public before now. I am not at all convinced that enough has changed between December—when the Bill was introduced in the other place—and now to make the Government's delay acceptable. It is fair to say that the Minister's predecessor trailed on Second Reading decisions about the Office for the Supervision of Solicitors but I am not persuaded that enough has happened since then to allow for such a delay.
It is fortunate that new clauses 8, 9, 10 and 11 are largely uncontroversial. None the less, it is the duty of an Opposition, and certainly the duty of the House as a whole, to examine carefully amendments to Government legislation that are tabled so late. I therefore propose to take a little look at the new clauses.
I listened carefully to what the Minister said about new clause 8. I understand that it gives the legal services ombudsman power to make binding decisions, rather than merely recommending that individual lawyers or professional bodies take particular action.
Although the ombudsman does not at present have power to order solicitors—or other lawyers—or their professional bodies to pay compensation to clients, the ombudsman does have power to require them to place advertisements, at their own expense, publicising the ombudsman's decision. I understand from solicitors that that is an unreal and unsatisfactory situation, and that it would be far more straightforward, and more useful to the lay client concerned, for the ombudsman to have direct power to make binding orders, rather than simply having a power to embarrass the lawyer or professional body.
The Minister said that the situation at the OSS had changed—had deteriorated—since the Bill first came to public notice. I could probably count on the fingers of one hand the number of complaints that I have received in my constituency about the quality of service provided by solicitors since becoming a Member of Parliament in April 1992.
§ Mr. Andrew Dismore (Hendon)That is not my experience.
§ Mr. GarnierI appreciate that others may have had different experiences. The hon. Member for Dismore—[Interruption.] Perhaps I should call him Mr. Hendon. Anyway, the hon. Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore) has clearly had a wholly different experience. Last week, he and I were at a meeting with the director of the OSS, Mr. Peter Ross, at which the hon. Gentleman painted a picture very different from the one that I knew. It was clear that my experience during seven or eight years here differed greatly from his during the two or three years since his election.
1022 I appreciate that different Members of Parliament will tell different stories. What I ask the Minister is this: what is his evidence—actual evidence, as opposed to simple assertion—that the position changed so dramatically between the beginning of the year and now that it was appropriate to table the new clauses last week?
New clause 9 is intended to enable the Lord Chancellor to require any professional body to make payments towards the cost of meeting the functions of the ombudsman. At present, those functions are funded by moneys provided by Parliament.
The purpose of new clause 9 is to enable the Lord Chancellor to recover from the professional bodies concerned the costs of operating the new functions proposed for the legal services complaints commissioner should it be decided to make such an appointment. The provision for a legal services complaints commissioner and his or her functions are, as the Minister explained, stated in new clauses 10 and 11.
The Opposition say that it is important that the Bill should make it clear that the power to recover costs is intended to apply only to the new functions. At the very least, it is important that the Government should state their plans for the operation of new clause 9. In any case there is some doubt about the appropriateness of the new clause.
Does the Minister agree that meeting the costs of the ombudsman and of the proposed complaints commissioner—I agree that there is some debate on whether the same human being should fill both posts, or whether the posts should be filled by two people—out of moneys provided by Parliament, rather than by levying the professional associations, would help to reinforce the independence of the two offices? Recovering costs from the professional bodies would—or at least could—give rise to the public perception that the ombudsman was not wholly independent of them.
Some people argue that making the professional bodies pay towards the ombudsman's costs would be consistent with the approach taken in other spheres—for example, in the case of the insurance ombudsman. However, that is a false analogy. The insurance ombudsman is the first tier for complaints about individual insurance companies, and the same applies to other ombudsmen in the financial services sector.
The professions already meet the full costs of first-tier complaints. In the case of the Law Society, the profession spends more than £11 million annually on the Office for the Supervision of Solicitors. The legal services ombudsman is a second-tier structure, designed to provide additional public assurance about the operation of the profession's complaints-handling mechanism. It is far more appropriate for such a scheme to be paid for from moneys provided by Parliament than for it to be funded by the professional bodies. I trust that the Minister will be able to help me in addressing my concerns on that issue.
New clause 11 would enable the Lord Chancellor to ask the legal services complaints commissioner to exercise new powers concerning professional bodies. The powers would include setting targets on the handling of complaints, and requiring professional bodies to pay a penalty when they failed to handle complaints effectively.
I understand the argument that it is in the public interest that there should be some means of ensuring that the ways in which the professional bodies handle complaints meet reasonable public needs. There is, indeed, a strong case 1023 for providing similar assurances for some of the services that the Government themselves provide directly to the public. I also recognise that the concern underlying new clause 11 has arisen primarily from the difficulty that the OSS has encountered in keeping pace with its increased work load.
As I said, the Law Society already spends £11.6 million annually—about £150 for every practising solicitor—on the OSS. As the Minister said, last February, the Law Society commissioned Ernst and Young, the management consultants, to undertake a review of the OSS's work and to suggest ways forward. The review has now been completed, and paints a very clear picture of how a more effective and efficient complaints-handling system could be achieved. The hon. Member for Hendon and I discussed that matter at our meeting with the director of the OSS.
Later this week, as a first step, the council of the Law Society will be asked to approve a further £5.7 million of expenditure that is designed to enable the OSS to get on top of its work load.
Paradoxically, the increased volume of complaints at the OSS comes at a time when the standard of client care provided by the profession as a whole has—I think indisputably—been steadily improving. Solicitors generally take far more care than they did a few years ago to ensure that clients are aware of likely costs at the outset, and that they are informed of progress on their matter. A whole new culture seems to have developed around the way in which legal advisers, both at the Bar and in the solicitors' profession, treat their clients, and that is much to be welcomed.
Nevertheless, complaints—and the costs of dealing with them—have risen, for two main reasons: increased client expectations about the type of service that they can expect from solicitors; and much-improved information from solicitors about clients' avenues of complaint.
The Law Society tells me that it recognises that there is still some way to go in bringing all solicitors up to the level of the majority in their dealings with their clients. Another matter that came out at the meeting that the hon. Member for Hendon and I attended last week was that we are talking about a small minority of rotten apples in what is otherwise a well-regulated and well-conducted profession. I notice that the hon. Member for Hastings and Rye (Mr. Foster) is here. He was also at the meeting, and I hope that he will be able to confirm what I say. That small number of malefactors brings not just solicitors but the whole legal profession into disrepute. I understand the public's concerns and the need for the Government to do something to assuage them.
The Law Society's continuing efforts in education, together with ensuring that appropriate penalties are imposed on those who let the profession down, are the way forward. Dealing with complaints more efficiently requires effort to reduce the number of complaints and to ensure appropriate prioritisation among those that need to be dealt with. Improved client care, including complaints handling by individual solicitors, can reduce the burden on the OSS. The legal profession should deal with complaints early and follow the example of the three major acute hospitals that serve the Minister's constituency and mine by persuading the complaining 1024 client or a member of their family that there are two sides to the argument and that it is possible to admit a mistake without admitting legal liability. The way in which a complaint is initially handled can often save a lot of time and money. I trust that solicitors and barristers will increasingly take a more conciliatory attitude towards those who complain about them and that the somewhat draconian measures that the Government are proposing may not need to be implemented.
The new clause provides for a penalty to be imposed on professional bodies if they fail to provide a satisfactory plan or to deal with complaints in accordance with it. I am instructed by the Law Society that it doubts whether that is appropriate. In any event, the Bill should specify the penalty that might be imposed. I use the term "instructed" because it slips easily from my lips. In my day job, to which I admitted at the start of our debates, I have the advantage—whether my clients consider it such is another matter—of being instructed by solicitors. It simply means that I am provided with information by them. The Law Society has told me about the concern that I am raising. It is only right that the House should take that into account when considering the new clauses. The Minister may be able to give us some help on those concerns.
I do not intend to debate new schedule 1 or amendment No. 86 and I do not invite the House to disagree with the proposals. However, I chide the Government, if not the Minister, for taking until June 1999 to come up with wording for new clauses which, with a little industry, could have been in the Bill when it was published, or at least introduced in Committee.
§ Mr. KidneyI shall not detain the House for long. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Minister on his position and wish him a long and distinguished career in government. I also declare a slight interest as a non-practising solicitor, as mentioned in the Register of Members' Interests.
I welcome the new clauses. The hon. and learned Member for Harborough (Mr. Gander) mentioned last week's meeting with the director of the Office for the Supervision of Solicitors. I was there too, so I know that it was a very cosy meeting. The hon. and learned Gentleman asked for evidence to support the late tabling of the amendments and asked why they could not have been drafted earlier.
It is certainly a breaking story that the Law Society is proving unable to deal with the number of complaints that are made against professionals. We must first go back to the OSS report for the 16 months to the end of December last year. It shows the staggering fact that just over 75,000 solicitors generated more than 44,000 new matters for the OSS to deal with. At the time of the Standing Committee, we heard the rumour that the ombudsman's report this year would say that the OSS was not coping with the present level of new complaints. This week sees the publication of the Ernst and Young report that was commissioned by the Law Society, which paints the chilling picture that the OSS is receiving more new complaints than it is resolving old ones, so there is a great crisis in the handling of complaints.
1025 I have personal experience in my constituency of the dissatisfied complainant. Although there are not huge numbers of complaints about solicitors in Stafford, we certainly have a persistent complainant who showed me an example of very poor complaint handling by the predecessor of the OSS and the previous ombudsman.
It is important to give members of the public—that is who the complainants are—confidence in solicitors as a profession. They must feel that complaints are dealt with properly and that the Law Society is accountable for dealing with them.
Some of my hon. Friends have tabled an early-day motion in which they seek statutory regulation of the legal profession. They say that there is too great a conflict of interests for the Law Society to deal with complaints. I do not share their view that the Law Society is in some way collaborating with the OSS to support solicitors and do down complainants. In fact, the Ernst and Young report shows that the Law Society has walked away from the OSS, taking its guarantee of independence far too strongly and leaving it to its own devices and unable to cope with the demand on its services. If there is a criticism to be made of the Law Society, it is that it has taken too little interest in, and under-resourced, the OSS.
I welcome the threat that the new clauses present to the Law Society—telling it to put in order complaints against solicitors. As the hon. and learned Member for Harborough said, a small minority of solicitors are producing a large number of complaints. The Ernst and Young report talks of 1 per cent. of all solicitors producing 10 per cent. of complaints. If that is what it takes, there should be a sword of Damocles hanging over solicitors—that they will pay a penalty for failing to deal with complaints and will pay for the commissioner coming in to impose a system for dealing with complaints in a timely manner.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Minister on introducing the new clauses. I hope that members of the Law Society will recognise that they are certainly in the last chance saloon. This is their last opportunity to clean up their act and deal with complaints in the way that we and every member of the public would expect them to.
§ Mr. VazHaving wished me a long and distinguished ministerial career, my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Mr. Kidney) has made me redundant. He eloquently put the case that I intended to make, so I really do not have to speak for very long. Having said that, in parliamentary terms that means that I will speak for just a little longer.
Things are getting worse. The backlog is now 9,000, it takes six months to allocate a case, and new cases are arising at the rate of 90 a week. It is right that, in the first instance, we should leave it to the Law Society and the professional bodies to regulate themselves. The Government are sometimes accused, unfairly, by the hon. and learned Member for Harborough (Mr. Garnier) of seeking to take too many powers. The point is that we are not exercising this power because we believe that the Law Society ought to be left to put its own house in order. That is why we welcome the Ernst and Young report, which points a way for the Law Society. There is a commitment for the Law Society to spend an additional £5.7 million on this issue.
I appear to be the only person involved in the debate who was not at the meeting with Mr. Peter Ross. I feel left out and neglected. I say to the hon. and learned 1026 Member for Harborough that he has done his bit in trying to publicise the work of the OSS. He was the host at the launch by the Office for the Supervision of Solicitors of a new hotline for Members of Parliament to ring, and he has been tenacious in his desire to ensure that these matters are publicised.
We can help members of the public by making sure that they know how to make their complaints. The commissioner—if he or she is appointed—will seek to help firms of solicitors put in place appropriate methods of handling complaints. Like the hon. and learned Member for Harborough, I have not had many constituents complaining to me about solicitors. I think that they go to other agencies to do that. However, they must be complaining to somebody, otherwise there would not be a backlog of 9,000. We are leaving the matter up to the Law Society. We are asking it to read the Ernst and Young report, which it commissioned, and to act on it. We want to work with the Law Society, and we will not compel it to do anything until we know what is happening. That is the right way forward.
It is right that the professional bodies should pay. They do not have to pay now, and they will not have to pay until the scheme is brought into effect. However, there are precedents for ombudsmen being paid for by those they seek to regulate. It is right that they should be in that position because they are the professional body dealing with those matters. They have a unique opportunity.
My hon. Friend the Member for Stafford talked about drinking at the last chance saloon. I am a teetotaller, and I do not indulge in such activities. However, the Government want the Law Society to succeed. We desperately want the Law Society to make this work—for itself, for the reputation of our profession and for the public at large. We will give the Law Society the opportunity to succeed. If it wants us to help, it should come and talk to us. That is why I will see Mr. Ross in the near future. His role is important in trying to make sure that the problem is solved.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford said, we are doing this now because the report of the ombudsman is coming out soon. Frankly, this is an appropriate legislative vehicle. We cannot just magic out of Committee a new Bill to deal with one specific issue. This is an opportunity. The Lord Chancellor, who is a listening Lord Chancellor, has decided that he will not take the power now. There is to be an 18-month wait, and we will see how it goes. Matters will then be reported back to the House in the appropriate way.
§ Question put and agreed to.
§ Clause read a Second time, and added to the Bill.