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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• There is not enough immigration legal aid to meet eligible demand – so providers increasingly have to make difficult decisions about which clients they take on.
• The fixed-fee payment system rewards providers for taking on more cases, even if they dedicate less time to each one.
• The eligibility rules for immigration legal aid make certain types of cases and clients harder for providers to take on.
• People who are financially eligible for legal aid can struggle to access it because they lack the right kind of evidence.

Report One: ‘How Immigration Legal Aid is Paid: Fixed fees and the Incentive to Do Less’

Report Two: ‘Assessing Eligibility for Immigration Legal Aid: Why Some Cases are Harder to Take On’

There isn’t enough legal aid to go around: demand for legal aid far outstrips supply, particularly for immigration and asylum law.  So how is our scarce legal aid funding distributed?

This project aims to explain how legal aid providers’ commercial incentives may affect the distribution of legal aid. The central argument is that the immigration/asylum legal aid scheme makes certain types of cases and clients more financially rewarding to take on.

Its findings are that the Legal Aid Agency (LAA), legal aid providers and the people who need legal aid all want different things. People seeking legal aid want access to a provider who can help them establish eligibility and properly develop their case. Providers need the work they do to be financially sustainable. The Legal Aid Agency, meanwhile, wants to deliver access to justice cost-effectively, using fixed fees and eligibility rules to control spending and target funding.

Both reports argue that the immigration legal aid scheme does not align these interests well enough. Providers are rewarded for meeting administrative and financial priorities of the legal aid scheme, rather than for meeting the needs of the people it serves. They conclude that there is no inherent conflict between these different interests: the scheme could be reformed so that LAA, providers, and people seeking legal aid are incentivised to want the same things.

Report One: ‘How Immigration Legal Aid is Paid: Fixed fees and the Incentive to Do Less’

The first report considers the way immigration and asylum legal aid providers are paid. It argues that fixed fees incentivise providers to minimise the time spent on each case and maximise the number of cases taken on – a ‘supermarket model’ of provision: “stack ’em high, sell ’em cheap”. Because providers can earn more per hour from quick, simple cases, while complex and time-consuming cases can attract greater financial and compliance risks, the scheme rewards administrative convenience over clients’ needs.

Key recommendation: the Immigration Contract’s fixed fee scheme should be reconsidered. It introduces a significant incentive for providers to cherry-pick simple cases and has had questionable efficacy in meeting the policy objectives for which it was introduced.

Read the report here.

Report Two: ‘Assessing Eligibility for Immigration Legal Aid: Why Some Cases are Harder to Take On’

The second report considers how the eligibility rules on scope, means, and merits can make some eligible cases easier for providers to take on than others. It argues that the immigration legal aid scheme creates a hierarchy of eligible work: some cases are more administratively burdensome, slower to be paid for, or more exposed to the risk of non-payment. Where demand already far exceeds supply, those differences can affect who is able to secure representation.

Scope: exceptional case funding can require providers to navigate a complex test and work at risk of non-payment. Providers may lack incentives to coordinate support where clients have several connected legal problems. The report recommends simplifying exceptional case funding and paying providers for supported referrals and coordination across different areas of law.

Means: people who are financially eligible can still struggle to prove it, particularly where they lack straightforward evidence, or are waiting for asylum support decisions, or have inaccessible assets overseas. The report recommends implementing the Means Test Review, paying providers for reasonable work helping people evidence eligibility, and improving how asylum support can be verified and used as evidence of means.

Merits: providers must carry out a more demanding assessment when deciding whether to take on appeal work, whilst remaining aware that their payment will likely be substantially delayed. The report recommends exploring earlier payment for Controlled Legal Representation so that commercial pressures do not distort decisions about whether a case should continue.

Read the report here. 

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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.

• Language and cultural barriers are undermining access to justice in immigration and asylum tribunals.
• Interpretation errors and misunderstandings do affect evidence, credibility and case outcomes.
• Applicants without legal representation face the greatest disadvantage in navigating a complex system.
• PLP is calling for stronger interpretation services, cultural awareness and procedural support to make justice genuinely accessible.

Read the report here.

Access to justice depends on more than having a right to a hearing. People must be able to understand proceedings, communicate their experiences, present evidence, and participate effectively in decisions that may profoundly affect their lives. When language barriers, cultural misunderstandings, or procedural obstacles prevent this from happening, the fairness and accuracy of legal decision-making can be undermined. 

In a new report by PLP, Cultural, Linguistic and Procedural Barriers to Access to Justice in Immigration and Asylum Tribunals – Report 1: Language, Evidence and Procedure, Selbi Durdiyeva examines how these challenges affect people navigating the immigration and asylum system and what can be done to address them. 

Drawing on an analysis of 271 Upper Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber) decisions issued over the past two years, alongside hearing observations and interviews with legal representatives, interpreters and intermediaries, the report explores how procedural fairness operates in practice. 

The findings show that interpretation and translation are often treated as administrative services rather than essential components of fair proceedings. Yet tribunal decisions demonstrate that misunderstandings, translation errors and failures to account for linguistic differences can influence credibility assessments and, ultimately, case outcomes. 

The report also highlights the importance of cultural and contextual understanding when assessing evidence. Immigration and asylum claims frequently require decision-makers to engage with unfamiliar political, social, religious and administrative contexts. Tribunal decisions reveal that misunderstandings of these contexts can contribute to procedural errors and undermine confidence in decision-making. 

The research further demonstrates that effective participation is closely linked to access to quality legal representation. Applicants who are unrepresented, or who receive inadequate legal support, face significant disadvantages in navigating a complex legal system, particularly where language and cultural barriers are also present. 

While the report identifies many examples of careful and conscientious decision-making, it argues that procedural fairness cannot be achieved through legal safeguards alone. Fairness also depends on the practical conditions that enable people to participate meaningfully in proceedings, including high-quality interpretation, careful engagement with evidence, cultural awareness and adequate support structures. 

PLP recommends that strengthening linguistic, cultural and procedural sensitivity is not only important for protecting individual rights but also for improving the overall functioning of the immigration and asylum system. Its recommendations, directed at the Ministry of Justice, HM Courts & Tribunals Service, the Judicial College and the Home Office, focus on improving guidance, training, interpretation services and support for applicants to help ensure that justice is both accessible and effective in practice. 

This is the first of two reports on the importance of cultural awareness and understanding in immigration and asylum tribunals. The second report focuses on family and private life, LGBTQ+ identity, and trauma, mental health and vulnerability. 

Read the report here.

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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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• Judicial review — a legal process that holds public bodies to account — is financially out of reach for most ordinary people 

• 97% of legal practitioners surveyed said costs rules are an obstacle to the rule of law and access to justice 

• People earning above just £32,000, the threshold for legal aid, frequently do not pursue or abandon legal claims due to the financial risk of losing 

• PLP is calling on the Government and Parliament to reform costs rules to make judicial review accessible to all, not just those who can afford it 

Read the report here.

New report finds costs rules in judicial review are pricing people out of justice 

Justice comes with a price tag — and most people cannot afford it. That is the central finding of a new report by Public Law Project (PLP), which sets out evidence that the financial cost of bringing a judicial review is systematically denying access to justice for ordinary people. 

Judicial review is a legal process where the High Court decides whether the decisions of public bodies, including government ministers, have breached public law or the fundamental rights of individuals.  

Under current costs rules, the losing party usually must pay the winning party’s legal costs, including solicitors’ fees, barristers’ fees, expert costs, and court fees. PLP’s report found that for many claimants this creates an unacceptable financial risk, making judicial review effectively inaccessible unless they qualify for legal aid or can self-fund a case. Often, people earning above only £32,000 — above the threshold for legal aid — do not pursue or abandon otherwise valid claims because they fear having to pay legal costs if they lose. PLP argues this weakens both access to justice and accountability for unlawful decision-making. 

An overwhelming 97% of legal practitioners surveyed in this report – 36 practitioners who collectively have acted in dozens of judicial reviews for claimants, defendants and interveners – identified the costs rules as being an obstacle to the rule of law and access to justice. More than three quarters reported seeing claimants who did not pursue an otherwise arguable claim for costs reasons. 

PLP warns that this has consequences that go beyond individual cases. When unlawful decisions are unchallenged, systemic problems within public bodies may remain uncorrected, affecting many more people. The organisation also argues that barriers to judicial review undermine Parliament’s sovereignty, as public bodies that may not be fulfilling their statutory duties cannot be reliably held to account. 

The evidence in this report indicates that costs rules produce significant obstacles to the rule of law and access to justice at all stages of judicial review proceedings. 

Contrary to the practice elsewhere in civil litigation, claimants cannot recover their legal costs at the pre-action stage, even if a public body concedes that they have acted unlawfully and grants the relief requested by the claimant. This means that claimants may still face significant legal bills for highlighting a public body’s unlawful conduct. 

When a claimant seeks permission to pursue a claim, claimants are exposed to potentially substantial costs because protective measures known as Costs Capping Orders (CCOs) are generally only available after permission has been granted by the court. If permission is refused, claimants are liable for the defendant’s legal costs. The report also found inconsistent use of CCOs by courts and noted they are currently limited to a narrow category of “public interest proceedings”. 

Finally, after a case proceeds to a full hearing and the High Court has reached a judgment, claimants without a CCO face uncapped legal costs that parties can recover from the losing side. This means that claimants, even with strong claims, may have to exhaust their life savings if they lose a claim at trial. Moreover, even successful claimants often do not recover more than 75% of their legal costs from defendants, while legal costs of public bodies have increased significantly over the last decade.

To address these concerns, PLP recommends several reforms: 

• The “Judge Over Your Shoulder” (JOYS) guidance produced by the Government Legal Department (GLD) should be amended to advise public bodies to pay claimants’ pre-action costs where they concede unlawfulness early. Claimants should be allowed to apply for CCOs when they lodge their claim, rather than only after permission is granted. 
• CCOs should be available for all judicial reviews and not just public interest proceedings. 
• Introducing “Qualified One Way Costs Shifting” (QOCS) in judicial review proceedings, so claimants may only be ordered to pay defendant’s costs where it is reasonable considering the claimant’s financial resources and conduct. 

The report’s author, PLP Senior Research Fellow, Lee Marsons: 

“Judicial review matters to everyone. It advances the public interest in being governed according to law.  

The Government – including the Prime Minister and the Attorney-General – have consistently highlighted the importance of the rule of law to the UK’s social, economic and political success. If they truly wish to put their words into action, the Government should implement the proposals outlined in this report to put the UK on the path towards inclusion rather than exclusion, and towards promoting the rule of law rather than undermining it.” 

Read the report here.

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Authored by Professor Jacqueline Kinghan and Professor Lisa Vanhala.

Read the report

Using public law to tackle unfair systems can bring transformative and tangible change. Yet it’s complex, takes time and resources, and risks being counterproductive when not done well.

In 2017, PLP partnered with the Lankelly Chase Foundation to gain a better, more rigorous understanding of the conditions that are necessary for successful public law-oriented collaborations and subsequent system change. The partnership aimed to use PLP’s public law expertise to support a group of frontline charities and NGOs across wide ranging areas, including criminal justice, welfare benefits, discrimination, domestic abuse and child protection.

PLP’s lawyers worked closely with organisational leaders, advocacy workers, community groups and frontline advisers to provide in-depth training and support, identify public law issues and support routes to challenge.

Learning was central throughout. Together, PLP and the Lankelly Chase Foundation explored when and how legal approaches can support systemic change, and what role public law — through judicial review, litigation and other strategies — can play in making that change happen.

Victoria Pogge von Strandmann, Legal Director at PLP, said:

“This report offers a unique perspective and detailed insights for organisational leaders, advocacy workers, community groups, frontline advisers and second tier advice organisations on how to build successful partnerships that build confidence in using public law to challenge injustice and achieve systemic change.”

Webinar

PLP held a free webinar in conjunction with the launch of this report, where key learnings were discussed. You can watch the recording here.

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Read the research

The research uses evidence from casework support provided to over 100 sanctioned individuals, alongside analysis of Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) data, to consider who is being sanctioned and in what circumstances – and the significant and often harmful impact sanctions have on those individuals.

This new research evidences:

• as currently designed and applied, sanctions are frequently applied as a first resort not a last resort measure,  
• safeguards do not prevent inappropriate and harmful sanctions being imposed,  

• the rate of sanctions (100% of someone’s standard allowance) is disproportionately severe – and far more severe than even the average criminal fine. 

Research participants reported sanctions leading to the need to use food banks, incur debt, negative impacts on physical and mental health and reduce their ability to search and undertake work.

The research also highlights that some groups are more likely to be impacted by this harmful regime than others – with people often sanctioned for reasons outside of their control (e.g unexpected health emergencies) or due to barriers they face in engaging with the system (e.g. language barriers).

It also evidences that digital exclusion puts people at risk of being sanctioned – and makes it harder to challenge sanctions that have been unfairly applied.

Recommendations

The report recommends the current sanction regime should be revoked entirely or fundamentally reformed to ensure sanctions are applied as a genuinely last resort measure, only after clear warning, and make sanctions less severe.

Read Annex 

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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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“Albanians are being used as scapegoats,” said PLP senior researcher Lee Marsons, author of “Punishing the Victim: How the UK’s broken asylum system fails the people it should protect.” He argues that these changes ignore the brutal reality of blood feuds, LGBTQ+ persecution, and modern slavery in Albania.

“The average successful grant rate for Albanians in 2022 was 49%. Just a year later in 2023, it was 14%. In 2024, it had dropped to an average of 9%. We also know that under the last Government’s Operation BRIDORA, launched in December 2022, there was a secret and probably unlawful target that only 2% of Albanian claims should be granted.

“Unless the Albanian state has carried out a miracle in under two years, this suggests that political pressure from all sides has filtered into Home Office decisions. Albanian claims should be fairly considered on their facts, without political interference.

“As with Rwanda, new laws and agreements will not magically change the facts on the ground.”

The timely report describes the experiences of six Albanians being supported through the UK’s asylum system by Shpresa Programme, a user-led Albanian national organisation, and lawyers at Islington Law Centre’s Migrant and Refugee Children’s Legal Unit (MiCLU):

• Timi, who is a survivor of life-threatening anti-LGBTQI+ violence and persecution in Albania at the hands of his father and classmates. He struggled to share these traumatic experiences due to lack of support from the Home Office and subsequently attempted suicide twice after his claim was wrongfully refused.
• Hasan and Gezim, who were trafficked by violent criminal gangs as children to smuggle drugs across international borders. Hasan regularly went without meals for days at a time while in the UK asylum system due to inadequate financial support.
• Ola, survivor of domestic abuse, who was trafficked to Spain by her abusive ex-boyfriend who forced her to work in a brothel.
• Ervin and Arber, who are survivors of blood feuds where family dishonour or debt bondage is passed onto male children, often settled by murder and violence.

Ola said:

“If I wasn’t Albanian and didn’t know what it’s really like, I’d ask why Albanians needed to be protected. If you listen to the media or politicians, Albanians are criminals or thieves and you need to get rid of us. But there’s lots of violence and corruption in my country and we do need help.”

Lee Marsons said:

“Sadly, Albania has become a proxy in the political fight over the UK’s broken asylum system. But the evidence demonstrates beyond doubt that Albania is unsafe for far too many of its citizens, due to modern slavery and human trafficking, blood feuds, organised crime, political corruption, failing institutions of protection and law enforcement, violence against women and girls, and LGBT+ persecution.”

The testimonies of Timi, Hasan, Gezim, Ola, Ervin and Arber have highlighted five of the key problems that people currently face in the UK’s asylum system. These include: difficulty accessing quality legal advice and representation, difficulty making personal and traumatic disclosures, poor Home Office decision-making, inability to meet basic needs due to lack of financial support, and encouraging returns to unsafe countries.

Section 59 of the new Border Security Bill would make Albanian asylum claims generally inadmissible, alongside claims from India and Georgia. Section 29, which enables the Home Office to remove modern slavery survivors from the UK if they have been convicted of a crime here, would further punish victims of trafficking who have been coerced into crime.

Lee Marsons said:

“Both of these potentially devastating changes must be dropped before they put people in real danger of further trafficking, exploitation, and death.”

Read the report

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Read the guide

For over two decades, interventions in public law cases – often called interventions in the public interest, or third party interventions – have formed a crucial part of Public Law Project’s strategic activities. Through interventions, it is possible to influence the outcome of judicial review claims and other court processes concerning public decision-making and Government policy.

But if a charity or NGO wants to intervene, where should they start?

Our new guide gives up-to-date information to navigate planning and decision-making on interventions. This includes learning and advice from smaller charities, detailed advice about communication strategies, and procedural and evidential requirements in different courts for lawyers working at or representing NGOs.

PLP produced the guide with the support of the public law litigation team at from A&O Shearman and Landmark Chambers’ public interest litigation team, as well as contributions from intervening NGOs.

Victoria Pogge von Strandmann, Legal Director at PLP, said:

We want this guide to encourage and support organisations to include interventions as part of their toolkit in driving change. If you’ve got something of real value to add and are committed to getting it before the court, you can influence a case, however small you are.

The guide comprehensively breaks down practical considerations, costs and the different stages of an intervention.

In order to be as accessible as possible, this guide also contains:

• A glossary of terms
• A flowchart explaining the stages of an intervention
• An in-depth case study of an intervention from Black Equity Organisation
• Short case studies and tips from experience provided by our contributors, including Bail for Immigration Detainees (BID), Childhood Bereavement Network (National Children’s Bureau), JUSTICE, and the3million

If you have any feedback on the guide useful for future updates, please fill out this feedback form.

We are already planning an update cycle with our team, and will of course acknowledge any contributions that are used.

Read the guide

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