Following a meeting with the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) and Legal Aid Agency (LAA) in late 2024, PRCBC has jointly with Amnesty UK provided the MoJ and LAA with a briefing explaining why rights to British citizenship ought never to have been removed from, and so should be returned into, scope for civil legal aid.
As set out in the briefing, the current civil legal aid scheme was founded by the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 following a consultation in 2010-2011. At the time, rights to British citizenship were either overlooked or misunderstood, causing them to be removed from legal aid scope. A proper understanding of these rights and application of the principles and purposes intended to underpin civil legal aid requires that these rights are brought back into scope for civil legal aid.