An update to: Cut off from justice: the impact of excluding separated migrant children from Legal Aid (2017)

The enactment of the Legal Aid, Punishment and Sentencing of Offenders Act 2012 (LASPO) has had widespread consequences for the provision of legal aid in the UK. One key feature of the new scheme, of particular importance to The Children’s Society, were the changes made to the eligibility criteria around legal aid for immigration cases. These changes saw unaccompanied and separated children removed from scope for legal aid unless their claim is for asylum, or if they have been identified as victims of child trafficking. Since LASPO came into force in April 2013, The Children’s Society has closely followed the impact of these changes on unaccompanied and separated children. In 2015, we published a report, ‘Cut off from justice’1 , that sought to understand the changing landscape unaccompanied and separated children faced as they seek to regularise their immigration status in the UK. This report updates our findings, four years after the introduction of LASPO, ensuring that the needs of unaccompanied and separated children continue to be heard within a system that often renders them invisible, harming both their childhood and their future.