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Legal Services Bill [HL]

I am sorry to interrupt the noble Baroness. How do the Government think sub-paragraph (3) is going to work? Having listened to the opposing views as to whether the board should be proactive or reactive, I say that surely the board will have to do a great deal of investigation to know whether an alteration should be exempt. It seems to me that nobody can do anything until the board tells them they can do it. So if they have made any sort of rule, however minor, which they suddenly realise may not meet the situation, the approved regulator will have to go to the board and ask whether they have the right to change it. They are going to have to do that on every occasion when an alteration of any sort is made. It seems to me that that is going to give the board a huge amount of work to do, whereas if it were to wait to be asked whether an alteration should not be exempt, I suspect there would be a great deal less work. Looking at how this is going to work, given that it will be a new board with a lay chairman and at least half lay members, I think that the team working behind the board will have to do an enormous amount of investigative work to know what they should make exempt or not exempt. It will shake down after a year or two, but the beginning will be extremely hard work for the board if the government proposal goes through.