Bevan Foundation calls for Welsh Government investment to prevent immigration legal services collapse

The Bevan Foundation, Wales’ most influential think-tank, has published a strategic plan showing how free immigration legal services in Wales can be safeguarded and developed by the next Welsh Government.

The strategy, which was developed alongside legal services, communities, and charities supporting refugees and migrants, responds to the enormous challenges that people in Wales face when trying to access immigration justice.

In previous reports, the Bevan Foundation has highlighted the scale of the crisis facing the immigration legal sector.

Thousands of people each year in Wales are denied their right to legal justice because they cannot find a legal advisor or solicitor to represent them.

The new strategy sets out how Welsh Government can better target funding to allow the sector to grow and flourish, ultimately reducing dependence on Welsh Government funds.

At its core, the strategy urges Welsh Government to: invest in supervision, training, and support to grow expertise; develop more services in migration support and refugee charities that help people prepare their cases and do non-legal work – freeing up the capacity of immigration advisors; help charities to develop legal aid services to reduce reliance on Welsh Government funding; and help people to understand and exercise their rights so they can challenge poor practice and avoid illegal unregulated advisors.

Previous Bevan Foundation research shows that there has been a drastic decline in immigration legal aid provision in Wales, which covers less than 2 in 10 cases which are eligible for help.

Services outside of legal aid are increasingly under pressure, and accessing even basic legal advice is often impossible, leading to devastating impacts on people’s lives.

The crisis in immigration legal services means that people seeking advice are routinely unable to access justice or to exercise their rights.

The Bevan Foundation’s Head of Migration Policy, Isata Kanneh, said: “The immigration legal sector in Wales is broken. There are so few legal services that people can’t get help and there is a huge shortage of expertise.

“Legal services don’t have the capacity to train and develop new advisors, so the sector is in a death spiral – losing experts but not able to bring new ones in.

“This strategy seeks to break that spiral and to give a much-needed boost to help the immigration legal sector in Wales function as it should.”

The Bevan Foundation’s Access to Justice Policy and Research Officer, Elinor Mattey, calls on the next Welsh Government to take strategic action to provide greater access to justice for migrants in Wales.

She said: “When people cannot get legal representation for immigration cases, they lose status, cannot exercise their rights, and can fall into poverty, homelessness, and debt.

“Improving access to justice is fundamental to tackling poverty and to ensuring that everyone in Wales can exercise their legal rights.”