My Lords, I thank all noble Lords and noble and learned Lords for their contributions to this debate, in particular for the broad welcome that the Bill has received from the Committee. I take it on myself—authorised, if I may, on behalf of this Committee —to pass on our warm thanks to the Law Commission and its team, one of whose representatives are here, for the extraordinary work that has been done on the Bill, and indeed to all those who participated in the consultation. As has been said, it is a model of its kind. All legislation should aspire to reach this kind of standard. That is the first thing I need to say.
Secondly, I also warmly congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Hacking, on his tour de force, going back to 1698—almost as if he was there in 1698, though not quite perhaps—and thank Mr Landau for coming today and blazing an earlier trail, in which we follow with diffidence as the years go by. We are well aware of the points he made on the importance of achieving a good balance between the courts and arbitration on the one hand, and promoting arbitration in this country and pursuing that objective, as the Law Society has today underlined.
With those introductory comments, perhaps I could deal briefly with at least some of the points that have been made, bearing in mind that we still have the Public Bill Committee to come; further points can, of course, be raised then. The equality point, raised by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Etherton, and commented on by the noble Lord, Lord Verdirame, is a difficult one. The Law Commission decided not to proceed to do anything about it but it is something that we can, of course, keep under review. When the Equality Act next comes up for consideration, I anticipate that this point would need to be addressed.
The noble Lord, Lord Faulks, raised the Nigeria case and the tension inherent in arbitration between privacy and transparency. I will make two points about that case. First, in a sense, it established that London is capable of dealing with this kind of fraud, because there was a judge who was able to expose it, and a procedure and, in the end, it was demonstrated that the supervisory jurisdiction in England and Wales works very well.
Secondly, I agree with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, that it was almost certainly a one-off—a quite extraordinary exception to the general rule. However, the Government ought to take under advisement whether we should do anything to further establish or reinforce what is undoubtedly the case—that London is clean, to use the word of the noble and learned Lord. With the co-operation of the professions, we ought to quietly establish whether anything further should be done to ensure that that is indeed the case. However, it was a disturbing case and, as the noble
and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, observed, question marks remain in some cases, over some aspects of the legal profession in relation to SLAPPS, transparency and so forth. In some areas, further consideration may be necessary in due course.
I am glad that the issue with the words “of itself” in new Section 6A(2) has been drawn to the Government’s attention. Again, we should reflect on that. I think that I understand what the draftsman is driving at, but perhaps we should embark on further amendment to that section and whether it is necessary—perhaps we should consider that further.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Mance, raised the issue of the review under Clause 11 and the whole question of what the rules of court should do and how far they should go. That may link back to our earlier discussion about the Nigeria case, because this is the court taking a very active review role. No doubt there will be a consultation in due course on the rules of court, and it will be important to bear in mind the points made today.
Those were the main points raised. The noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, asked whether we planned to have an assessment in a year or two. That is a little far ahead for the Government to be looking at the moment.