Senior Tory mulls changes to secret courts bill

After publishing a paper highly critical of the Justice and Security Bill this morning, Andrew Tyrie is now considering making amendments to the legislation, I understand. MPs in a Bill committee will scrutinise the legislation line by line this week, and are expected to report to the House of Commons by mid-February. Tyrie, who also chairs the influential Treasury Select Committee, is considering tabling amendments to the Bill to be debated at that report stage. The Centre for Policy Studies paper which Tyrie has co-authored with Anthony Peto QC says that ‘part 2 of the Bill should, preferably, be withdrawn, at least until the government can come back with more balanced proposals, accompanied by a more rigorous explanation of the need for them’. Acknowledging that ‘regrettably, it is likely that Part 2 in some form will be passed’, the pair give six recommendations for amendments to the legislation. These could well form the basis for Tyrie’s own changes to the Bill:

1.