A Conservative government would seek to slow down the introduction of alternative business structures, shadow justice minister Henry Bellingham revealed last week.

Describing ABSs as ‘one more assault on the high-street solicitor’, Bellingham (pictured) predicted that big names would enter the market and cherry-pick the more lucrative work. ‘They’ve done it with conveyancing, they’re going do it with will writing and they’re going to do it with other types of legal work,’ he said.

He told delegates at the Motor Accident Solicitors Society’s annual conference in London that he preferred a gradual evolution to a ‘big bang’, adding: ‘If we possibly can, we’re going to find ways of slowing down the process. We’re not going to reverse the Legal Services Act 2007 but we certainly won’t move it any further.’

Bellingham expressed sympathy with the bar’s more cautious approach to new business structures, ‘because they take the same view that we do – that this has got to evolve slowly. Let’s see how some of these new arrangements work... Let’s see above all what effect they have on clients’.

On other issues, Bellingham said a Tory government would ‘almost certainly’ review referral fees. He said: ‘[Shadow justice secretary] Dominic Grieve is very anti-referral fees. I’m probably slightly less violently anti-referral fees but I think there is a very strong case for getting rid of them.’

The Conservatives would also investigate ways of topping up the legal aid budget from outside the Ministry of Justice, such as a privately funded conditional legal aid fund and a ‘small levy’ on legally aided defendants who are convicted of criminal offences.

Bellingham said he was ‘very concerned’ by some insurers’ practice of third-party capture of claims and questioned why the Financial Services Authority is not taking a stronger line against them.BSB chair Lady Deech said: ‘The changes we are considering are significant and may be introduced as a series of small steps forward, as Sir David Clementi recommended, rather than one big step.’

  • The Bar Standards Board meets today to decide on what it said could be ‘historic changes’ to the ways barristers are allowed to practise. After two years of deliberation and five consultations, the BSB will rule on whether barristers should be permitted to participate in new business structures such as barrister-only partnerships, legal disciplinary practices, or alternative business structures.