Hansard

As other members have said, there were many issues for the Justice 2 Committee to consider in scrutinising this 80-page bill, which was probably dwarfed by the hundreds of submissions from throughout the country that we had to read.

In the three minutes that I have, I will address just two aspects of the bill: the need for greater public confidence in the complaints system and widening access to justice. The Executive introduced the bill, which I welcome, in response to the overwhelming demand from the public for a legal complaints system that they can trust and on which they can rely for a quick and fair resolution to their reasonable concerns. The current self-regulatory procedure is disliked and criticised because it is seen as the Law Society of Scotland and the Faculty of Advocates investigating themselves. It is also seen as cumbersome, costly and weighted against the interests of consumers.

I acknowledge that the Executive introduced the bill on that basis. However, the public's preferred option in the initial consultation of a wholly independent commission dealing with all complaints is not among the options before us in the bill. That is a mistake, because we will still get a sense that, as the Scottish Consumer Council put it, the system

"needs to put the users of legal services at the heart of the regulatory arrangements."

I am not sure that the bill achieves that. As Linda Costelloe Baker, the outgoing Scottish legal services ombudsman, said when she appeared before the Justice 2 Committee to vent her frustration, the remit of the commission will be limited to addressing complaints of poor service. The rights of advocates and solicitors to self-regulation should be scrapped. The commission will not, however, be the regulator of the adequate practice of the profession. We will move from self-regulation to partial co-regulation. The minister was right to acknowledge the unease about the separation of conduct and service complaints, but we will see how that develops in due course.

My final point is on the evidence that the committee heard about the huge unmet demand for legal advice. We received a great deal of evidence that the cost of accessing even basic assistance is prohibitive to many people, so the provisions that will increase people's access to advice and low-level assistance are particularly welcome.

I again draw the minister's attention to paragraph 233 of the Justice 2 Committee's report on the bill, which highlights the need to commence the provisions in sections 25 to 29 of the Law Reform (Miscellaneous Provisions) (Scotland) Act 1990 to provide more choice and legal protection for consumers. The fact is that those provisions have not been commenced in 17 years. The Executive has made a commitment to commence the provisions in March, before the dissolution of Parliament, and I hope that it does so.

The Scottish Socialist Party will support the bill at decision time, even though we would have preferred all complaints to be handled by the Scottish legal complaints commission.