The Immigration and Asylum Bill is now at committee stage in the House of Commons, this is a critical moment to build support for opposition to the legislation. The Bill could result in the removal of independent and expert appeal mechanisms and further weaken human rights protections in the UK, continuing the regressive trend of recent immigration legislation by undermining procedural fairness, and putting at risk the UK’s compliance with international law.

Read CARJ’s evidence to to the Immigration and Asylum Bill Committee here. 

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Read the evidence here 

PLP welcomes the Committee’s findings on human rights and AI regulation. The Committee has today concluded that the UK’s approach to AI regulation is “patchy” and is not doing enough to protect people’s rights. It has called for a dedicated AI Bill and a new independent oversight body with the powers to effectively hold both developers and deployers of AI to account. 

The report draws on PLP’s evidence in several areas. The Committee has called for greater transparency and safeguards around government automated decision-making – agreeing with PLP that public bodies should be clearer with individuals when decisions about them are taken using AI, so people have enough information to understand and challenge such decisions. It also highlights PLP’s warning that the risks of poorly governed AI are likely to fall hardest on marginalised people and communities, particularly those who rely most on public services.

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In August 2026 the Public Law Project (PLP) submitted a response raising concerns that there is not adequate evidence that it is in the public interest for these reforms to be extended to other planning regimes.

Read the evidence here

Summary 

• PLP disagrees that the NSIP judicial review regime should be extended to other planning judicial reviews.
• As judicial review is one of the UK’s most important constitutional mechanisms for promoting the rule of law and ensuring public bodies remain within their legal powers, it should only be restricted where there is clear evidence and a compelling reason in the public interest. The Government has clearly stated that it is unclear such evidence exists, as a result the Government should not proceed with these proposals on constitutional and evidential grounds.
• Academic opinion at the time of the then Government’s original call for evidence supports PLP’s position.
• Bringing judicial reviews in the planning context is already a challenge. For example, there is a statutory time limit of 6 weeks (compared to the usual three months) to issue a planning claim in the Administrative Court.
• It remains unclear how these proposals will detrimentally impact people with protected characteristics.
• PLP is concerned that extending the NSIP regime to other planning judicial reviews will be used by this or future administrations to justify expanding the restrictions to further judicial reviews still. The more widely the net is cast, the greater the risk to access to justice and the rule of law – simply because there are more claims at issue.

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1. Undermines the independence and expertise of asylum appeals;
2. Weakens the UK’s commitment to international law and the protection of Article 8 (the right to private and family life) of the European Convention on Human Rights; and
3. Forces refugees to pay for Home Office delays in decision-making.

The post Immigration and Asylum Bill parliamentary briefing appeared first on Public Law Project.

In May 2026, the Public Law Project (PLP) submitted evidence in response, raising serious concerns about the independence of the new body and the assumptions behind them. 

Read the evidence here

Summary

PLP argues that the IAB risks undermining fairness, independence, and the quality of decision-making in asylum appeals. In particular, the proposals would move away from the current specialist tribunal system, where legally qualified judges are appointed through an independent process, towards a model that could include decision-makers without legal training, such as civil servants or local authority figures. We are concerned that this would significantly weaken judicial independence in cases that are often complex and life-changing.

The response also highlights wider pressures in the asylum and immigration system that the proposals do not address. Many people already face hearings without legal representation due to the ongoing crisis in immigration legal aid, and we warn that increasing reliance on remote or paper-based hearings could further disadvantage those most in need of support.

Instead of introducing a new appeals body, PLP calls for a more joined-up, system-wide approach to reform. This would include improving the quality of initial Home Office decisions, expanding access to early legal advice, and strengthening capacity across all the essential elements of the system — including legal aid providers, interpreters, expert witnesses, the Home Office and the courts. Evidence shows that a significant proportion of asylum decisions are overturned on appeal, suggesting that improving initial decision-making and legal support would be a more effective way to reduce delays and backlogs than redesigning the appeals structure itself.

Photo: Andy Thornley/Flickr

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Read the briefing

A coalition of nine organisations in the legal and human rights sector, working for a fair and humane immigration system, have warned that the Government still needs to amend the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill in the following ways:

• Protect refugees from being wrongly punished by the criminal offences in Clauses 13 to 18;
• Repeal the Illegal Migration Act 2023 (IMA) in full to prevent the retention of harmful provisions;
• Remove the retrospective effect of detention powers by deleting Clause 41(17);
• Repeal concerning provisions of the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 (NABA); and
• Remove the discriminatory power in new clause 43 to impose curfew and tagging requirements on anyone with limited leave to enter or remain in the UK.

The coalition includes Public Law Project, Asylum Aid, ATLEU, Bail for Immigration Detainees, Detention Action, Freedom From Torture, Helen Bamber Foundation, Medical Justice and MiCLU.

Read the briefing

Photo: © 1000words / Dreamstime.com

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Read the full briefing

Our latest briefing covers what we know and don’t yet know about: 

• Who is at risk of being sent to Rwanda? 
• On what grounds can people challenge their removal? 
• How will migrants access legal advice?

Our briefing also looks at how the scheme will be implemented and what some of the future policy questions and pinch-points are likely to be. 

If you have any questions arising from this briefing, please contact l.agnew@publiclawproject.org.uk. 

Read the full briefing

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The Bill weakens important data protection rights and safeguards, making it more difficult for people to know how their data is being used or how decisions affecting them are being made.

That’s why PLP has partnered with JUSTICE to call for provisions to improve transparency around automated and algorithmic decision-making.

Read our open letter to the Secretary of State on statutory transparency

We are also urging peers to support vital amendments that would preserve the UK’s data protection framework. Our key concerns about the Bill in its current form are:

• New ‘anti-fraud’ powers would allow the DWP to spy on the bank accounts of benefit claimants
• Public authorities and other bodies would have wider scope to refuse subject access requests, making it more difficult for people to access information about how their personal data is used
• The presumption against solely automated decision-making would be ‘flipped’, allowing decisions to be made without human involvement in a much broader range of situations
• The requirement to conduct a proper impact assessment of data processing would be watered down
• Broad and unspecified powers would allow the Secretary of State to amend the UK GDPR without scrutiny by Parliament
• And there would still be no legal duty to ensure that public authorities are upfront about their use of AI.

In a recent open letter, PLP led a coalition of over 30 civil society organisations, academics, legal practitioners, unions and think tanks who called for the Secretary of State to place the Algorithmic Transparency Recording Standard on a statutory footing  to increase transparency around the use of algorithmic and AI tools in the public sector.

Over 40 organisations, including PLP, also signed an open letter to the Secretary of State, opposing the introduction of new and far-reaching DWP powers to check the bank accounts of claimants.

PLP’s briefing for Committee Stage

Joint briefing with JUSTICE on safe use of ADM in the public sector

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Read PLP’s full submission

The Ministry of Justice launched their Review of Civil Legal Aid to ‘explore options for improving the long-term sustainability of the civil legal aid system.’ The Review aims to consider every aspect of the civil legal aid system and whether it currently works for users and providers.

As reported by the Law Society Gazette, our response highlighted the problems caused by ‘disproportionate and punitive’ Legal Aid Agency compliance activity. PLP research discovered that one provider was employing five full-time staff just to administer and bill their legal aid work, at a cost of around £200,000 per year.

But the financial risk faced by providers is just one reason that legal aid is in crisis. Our response explained the barriers that prevent individuals from accessing civil legal aid:

• There are not enough providers to meet demand for services, especially in the South West and North West
• Some of those who most need access to services are not eligible for them, due to extremely restrictive eligibility criteria
• Sometimes the service offered under civil legal aid is just too low in quality to effectively help those who need it

Remote legal advice may help in some individual cases but it is not a ‘magic bullet’ solution to the lack of capacity in certain areas. There is no surplus of provision elsewhere in the system and remote delivery of advice is deeply unsuitable for some individuals.

Instead, the immigration and asylum legal aid sector needs to be fairly remunerated for its work and the Legal Aid Agency needs to reconsider the use of fixed fees. As the National Audit Office recently highlighted, it has been 28 years since the Ministry of Justice last increased legal aid fees for civil cases and in fact, it reduced them by 10% in 2011-12. Urgent action is needed to rectify this.

Read the Law Society Gazette on the ‘mountain of evidence’ submitted to the Ministry of Justice.

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READ OUR FULL BRIEFING

Before the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill returns to the Commons on January 16, PLP argues that the Bill is still dangerous and doesn’t answer the Supreme Court’s findings. Our briefing focuses on three arguments:

• Clause 2: The evidence still indicates that Rwanda is not a safe country to forcibly remove people to and the Government’s treaty has not changed this, putting people’s lives and safety at real risk.
• Clause 4: Restricting legal challenges to particular individual circumstances is not enough to ensure people’s safety.
• Clauses 1, 3, and 5: The Bill disables important human rights safeguards by disapplying most of the Human Rights Act 1998 and requiring domestic judges to disregard international law and interim measures of the European Court of Human Rights.

This Bill puts at risk the lives and safety of some of the world’s most persecuted people. It breaches a number of the UK’s most important international commitments and undermines the mutual respect and restraint required by the British constitution between the judiciary, Parliament, and the Executive.

READ OUR FULL BRIEFING

The post Why MPs must oppose the ‘Safety of Rwanda’ Bill appeared first on Public Law Project.

This week the Data Protection and Digital Information Bill has its report stage and third reading in the House of Commons.

PLP has briefed MPs that the Bill will weaken important data protection rights and safeguards, reducing transparency and putting individuals at greater risk of unfairness and discrimination.

Automation and AI are playing a more and more significant role in how government makes decisions and carries out its functions, from education to healthcare, to immigration and welfare. Data protection laws are currently some of the most powerful tools available to protect individuals against unfair uses of data and technology, and to enable people to find out how their data is being used and how decisions about them are made.

This Bill will weaken some of those vital data protection laws.

Our briefing focuses on:

• Clause 8 would give public authorities and other bodies wider scope to refuse subject access requests, making it more difficult for people to find out what information about them is being held and how it is being used. Clause 8 should be removed from the Bill.
• Clause 12 would ‘flip’ the presumption against automated decision-making, so that in some cases where it is currently unlawful to use solely automated decision-making, it would be permitted. Clause 12 should be amended so that it does not weaken existing protections around automated decision-making.
• Clause 18 would water down requirements to carry out a proper impact assessment. This means that in many cases, bodies and authorities processing data will not have to fully consider whether the processing is necessary and proportional. Clause 18 should be removed from the Bill.
• The Bill gives the Secretary of State broad powers to amend our data protection laws via statutory instrument, without adequate scrutiny by Parliament. The wide powers given to the Secretary of State in Clauses 5, 6, 12 and 114 should be removed or narrowed.

The post How the new Data Bill waters down protections appeared first on Public Law Project.

Read our evidence here

The committee’s report drew on our concerns for a number of recommendations reflecting our priorities, including:

• A clear plan from the Home Office on how it will increase caseworker numbers
• Data published about how many claims have been implicitly withdrawn – and whether that’s due to people being unable to fill out the complex questionnaire
• A statement on when the Home Office intends to end the use of hotels as contingency asylum accommodation
• A strategy for adjusting the process to suit people’s vulnerable characteristics
• A single business case published on the objectives and justifications of the Asylum Transformation Programme, so that Parliament and civil society can hold it accountable.

The report also specifically mentioned our concerns about a new questionnaire, designed to streamline the asylum process for people from Afghanistan, Eritrea, Libya, Syria, Yemen and Sudan.

Alongside the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, PLP pointed out that the questionnaire is poorly designed and only available in English.

Our evidence states:

It is wholly unrealistic to expect a vulnerable asylum seeker, who may not speak English and who is likely to be in a state of shock and trauma, to fill in a complicated questionnaire without assistance and advice.

There has been a clear increase in asylum claims being withdrawn. If that’s because the focus on streamlining cases has led to flawed decisions, the Home Office must act urgently to prevent vulnerable people being left behind by administrative failure.

Our full insights published here

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