Former local government minister Bob Neill has backed Number 10's plan to streamline the judicial review process, claiming that too much local and national policy is stymied by pointless legal appeals.

Mr Neill, who left the DCLG in the autumn reshuffle, told The MJ there was cross-party consensus on the need to tackle an overly bureaucratic and ‘suffocating' judicial review process which allows lobby groups, for example, to delay government policies for years through numerous court appeals.