Lord Justice Leveson this morning addressed an application sent to the Leveson Inquiry by non-profit organisations, asking the judge to consider a ruling allowing government advisors early access to confidential inquiry documents.

Full Fact, The Media Standards Trust, Index on Censorship and English PEN made the application yesterday, urging Leveson to publish the names of any senior civil servants who will be able to see this material, to make sure the process remains transparent. It follows a ruling made last week, granting core participant status to David Cameron, Nick Clegg, Vince Cable, Jeremy Hunt, Michael Gove, Theresa May, Ken Clarke and George Osborne.

The judge said he would not publish names but expected government ministers granted core participant status to restrict their “confidentiality circle” to a minimum. He also said requests for redactions to evidence by ministers would be treated in the same way as those of other core participants.

He said: “There is the principled and strictly impartial approach for the redaction of documents submitted to the inquiry, which is in place in relation to evidence submitted by the government core participants, as it has been in relations to others.

“The practice adopted has worked well and I see no reason to take a different approach in relation to government core participants... It would more importantly give rise to a heighten risk of material which rightly deserved redactions being inadvertently disclosed in the public domain.

“I do not doubt the good faith of those who have raised these issues although in the light of the way that I have tried to conduct this inquiry throughout, I am somewhat concerned that it is thought that I might be party to reducing its transparency. Suffice to say I will not, and I would be surprised if I were asked to be.”

Leveson said if a minister seeks to provide a restriction notice, that will itself be the subject of discussion within the inquiry.