Report stage in the Lords is where the most important changes to a legislative measure are usually made, so it will be no real surprise to learn that the Legal Services Bill has been much amended in recent days. And with another day of report still to come, there are bound to be more.


Some of the amendments were moved by the government itself. A fair few were purely technical, but the more significant were a direct response to promptings from bodies such as the Law Society; the arguments having been rehearsed at the earlier committee stage.



For example, ministers introduced changes to restrict the legal services board's power to fine, so the Society will no longer be financially penalised for matters outside its control. The government also brought forward a large number of consequential amendments to ensure that all ministerial functions under the Bill will rest with the Lord Chancellor, rather than the secretary of state - an important change that will limit the potential intrusion of other government departments.



Elsewhere, ministers gave their full support to Opposition suggestions, such as including 'protecting and promoting the public interest' in the list of regulatory objectives.



However, in many other cases, ministers resisted crucial changes, and were then defeated in the voting lobbies. For example, the government lost the division on an amendment, moved by the crossbencher Lord Neill, which would require the concurrence of the Lord Chief Justice to appointments of the chair and members of the legal services board. If this amendment survives the House of Commons, it will go a long way to providing reassurance about the independence of the board.



The government was also defeated on a group of Opposition amendments, which would ensure that the board could exercise its formal powers over approved regulators only where their failing was 'significant' (rather than having any adverse impact on regulatory objectives), and only where the failing affected the regulatory objectives 'taken as a whole' rather than simply any one of them.



Later, ministers suffered the same fate over an amendment to ensure that the board must respect the principle that primary responsibility for regulation rests with the approved regulators. Bizarrely, as the amendment does no more than state the relationship between the board and the approved regulators, which the government had said it sought to achieve, ministers nevertheless resisted the amendment. However, it was pressed to a division, and the government was once again comfortably defeated.



This is not an exhaustive list of the changes in the Lords. For example, on the third day of report, we would expect a vote on ensuring that the polluter pays principle is defined, so as to exclude the possibility of charges being levied against lawyers where a complaint is not upheld. And at third reading, I would be surprised if the House did not divide on ensuring access to justice is taken into account on alternative business structure licensing decisions.



So, the Bill that goes to the Commons sometime in early June will be substantially different - and indeed significantly better - than the one introduced back in November. But it is wise to remember that those amendments passed in defiance of the government are highly vulnerable, and certainly capable of being overturned by ministers in the Commons, where the government has a clear majority. It will be one of the tasks of lobbyists to try to prevent this happening.



What will not work in the government's favour is the time-table on the Bill, which is clearly slipping. At one point, it appeared that the Bill was safely on track for Royal Assent in July, but it now seems almost certain that this will be delayed until the 'overspill' in October. Here, in the last few weeks of this session, ministers will have less room for manoeuvre when agreeing the final shape of the measure with the Lords.



Not that the government seems particularly worried about timetable slippage. Two of the Bills announced in the last Queen's speech - the Terrorism Bill and the Criminal Justice Bill - were thought to have been shelved as they had not been published by the time of the Easter recess. But in giving evidence before the departmental select committee on 25 April, Home Secretary John Reid made it clear that they would be appearing this session. To say this is late in the day for a major Bill is an understatement.



The Criminal Justice Bill would be the first measure for the new Ministry of Justice, expected to come into existence on 7 May. Terrorism legislation, on the other hand, will fall squarely into Reid's new remit, though he is determined that a 'national consensus', including from all political parties, would be sought prior to any extension of the 28-day limit for detention without trial. How this will be done when there are little over 12 weeks left of this session is anybody's business. But if any government can do it, it is this one.



John Ludlow is head of the Law Society's parliamentary unit