Take Your MP to Work
We’ve got a new government, and it’s time to organise. Now more than ever, we need to come together to push for a well-resourced and sustainable legal aid system for everyone in our communities. Let’s make sure that our new political leaders don’t stop listening.
If you are a community adviser - whether at a charity, law firm, law centre, or community group - take action with us! Sign up using the form below (make sure to opt-in to receive campaign resources).
Access to legal aid can be a source of power to many, yet many communities are excluded from accessing justice. This harms all of us. With access to legal advice becoming more and more difficult for those that need it, informing politicians and the public about the need for a sustainable and fair legal aid system is key to being able to build change. Government cuts to legal aid, poor funding and monitoring of the work and increasingly high stakes for those left without access to legal advice, have led to a fractured legal sector and fractured communities.
But as workers and communities, we hold power. As the new government consolidates itself over the next few months, now is an important moment to come together and put our work and the challenges we face back on the public agenda. This is a chance to make our collective voices heard and to push members of a new Parliament to commit to a well-funded, sustainable legal aid system.
We believe that change happens from the bottom up. The ‘Take Your MP to Work’ campaign is our opportunity, as lawyers and caseworkers, frontline support workers and advice charities, to come together to connect with our new and returning local MPs, show them the current reality of legal aid work and share our joint views on what is needed to improve people’s access to justice in our communities.
The campaign invites community advisers - whether from law firms or charities - across the country to partner up and invite your local MP to accompany you to work, see access to justice in practice and learn about the issues you work on. This could take the form of them shadowing some of your activities, organising a joint meeting with them and your community members, or them joining an event that you are putting on about your work - or whatever feels the best way to show why access to justice is important in your community!
Interested? Sign up using this form and we’ll send you out more information on how to participate, the support we can provide and the next steps to take. Please read through the information carefully and share with any colleagues that you are working with on this. If you’ve got any initial questions, please do email us directly.
