Every day, at AdviceUK, we advocate on behalf of you – our members. We work closely with you to understand and cover the issues that affect you and your clients. We work with a wide range of external stakeholders and seek to influence decision-makers so that we can improve the landscape within which advice services operate and the lives of the people you support. We also speak to the media on your behalf about the issues that matter to advice services.
Since our last advocacy roundup in January, we have prioritised giving evidence to the Access to Justice Inquiry, providing a robust response to the “A Fairer Pathway to Settlement” consultation and planning for our upcoming workforce campaign.
Access to Justice Inquiry
Earlier this month, AdviceUK was invited to give oral evidence to the Justice Select Committee as part of its ongoing Access to Justice Inquiry. This was a major opportunity for AdviceUK to highlight the crucial work of the independent advice sector. Building on our written submission, our Chief Executive, Liz Bayram, highlighted the crucial role of advice services in ensuring everyone, regardless of means, can access justice, and the problems the sector is facing. Liz raised concerns that fewer people will be able to exercise their rights and access justice when they need to, and called for improved and sustainable funding for the sector and greater investment in the advice workforce.
You can read more about the evidence session in our press release here. We were pleased to see our contribution was featured in Legal Futures and Hammersmith Today.
The committee is continuing to gather evidence to inform its inquiry and is looking to hear directly from beneficiaries of advice services. If you know someone who may be able to share their experience, please contact the AdviceUK team via Willem.vandeVen@adviceuk.org.uk.
“A Fairer Pathway to Settlement” Consultation
In February, AdviceUK submitted evidence to the Home Office’s “A Fairer Pathway to Settlement” consultation, fundamentally rejecting the proposals and urging the Government to drop them.
For this consultation, we convened a roundtable with 22 members across England providing frontline immigration advice. They support asylum seekers, refugees, long‑settled migrants, families with no recourse to public funds, survivors of trafficking, and people with long‑term health conditions and disabilities, many of whom will be disproportionately impacted by the proposals. A huge thank you to everyone who was able to contribute to our submission!
Drawing on the experiences of our members, we warned that the proposals will increase insecurity and inequality for migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers and their families, while placing additional demand on already overstretched advice services. We also expressed concern that the proposals will fuel and legitimise hostility towards advice services and the people they support. You can read more in our press release here, and in our full submission here.
We shared our views with the media and secured several pieces of coverage, including in the national media. The Guardian published an article, both in print and online, featuring AdviceUK and our member Refugee and Migrant Forum of Essex & London (RAMFEL), and shining a spotlight on how the Home Office’s proposed penalties linked to accessing public funds deter migrant families from seeking lawful support. This was also picked up by ethnic and community media outlets.
Reinforcing our position as the primary opinion leader on issues facing the free and independent advice sector, we were also quoted in a piece published by Civil Society, a key sector outlet. We raised concerns about the proposals to accelerate applications based on volunteering, as it risks forcing individuals to volunteer where they cannot do so and puts pressure on advice services to accept more volunteers when they may not have the capacity to do so.
To further highlight the severity of the proposals in this consultation, we also co-signed a joint letter to the Home Secretary, coordinated by Neil Duncan-Jordan MP, calling for them to be scrapped. The letter was signed by 33 civil society organisations, including some AdviceUK members, such as the Work Rights Centre and African Rainbow Family. It called on the Home Secretary to halt the consultation process until a full impact assessment is published and rule out retrospective application. You can view the letter here.
Workforce Campaign
Workforce pressures have been a consistent concern raised by our members. Your experiences and insights into the extent of the issues the sector is facing in recruiting, retaining and training staff directly shaped our 2025 Advice Works report. This year, we’ll be building on that work with a renewed focus on achieving long-term solutions to these challenges. Your involvement will be crucial to the success of this next phase, from shaping our research to joining campaign activity. We’ll be sharing more opportunities to get involved soon, but in the meantime, if you’d like to discuss this work or share insights from your own service, please get in touch with us via willem.vandeven@adviceuk.org.uk.
