Mr. Tom Flynn:

The 2000 Act had become a bit of a mess, simply because it was being amended constantly. It was probably too complex to deal with in the end, even for lawyers.

There are some good things in this draft Bill. Some of the legislative tidying up and cleaning is very good, but there are some provisions, which we have already highlighted, that we certainly believe need to be very carefully considered. One has to be careful about change for the sake of change; it does not necessarily mean one is going to improve the situation. There are some policy choices that clearly need to be made but they need to be informed by our legal obligations under EU, the Aarhus Convention and international law. It is not immediately clear to us that the analysis of all the elements, particularly the provisions on judicial review, has occurred.