uk-legal-mcp

A Model Context Protocol server for UK legal research. One MCP connection wires your AI assistant into UK case law, legislation, parliamentary debates, bills, votes, committees, OSCOLA citation parsing, and HMRC guidance — every response carrying the metadata you'd need to footnote it.

Read-only. No API keys required for the legal sources (HMRC's authenticated endpoint is optional).

Connect

Hosted

Use this URL in any MCP-aware client (Claude, Claude Desktop, VS Code, Cursor, etc.):

https://uk-legal-mcp.fly.dev/mcp

For clients that use mcpServers JSON:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "uk-legal": {
      "type": "http",
      "url": "https://uk-legal-mcp.fly.dev/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Local install (stdio)

Useful from Claude Desktop on a residential IP — bypasses the legislation.gov.uk WAF that intermittently blocks the hosted server's cloud IP range:

uvx uk-legal-mcp

Claude Desktop config:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "uk-legal": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["uk-legal-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Local development

stdio against your local checkout — spawns a fresh process per MCP connection from the project's [project.scripts] entry, so the source is always read as edited. Replace <abs-path> with the absolute path to your clone:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "local-uk-legal": {
      "command": "uv",
      "args": ["run", "--project", "<abs-path>", "uk-legal-mcp"],
      "env": { "VIRTUAL_ENV": "" }
    }
  }
}

What's here

Eight namespaced modules covering the UK's primary legal sources:

Plus a small set of judgment://, legislation://, and hansard:// URI-addressed resources for content the LLM can read on demand without bloating tool responses, and four orchestration prompts for common research workflows.

A lawyer's workflow

This server is a data pipe. It returns what the sources say, with citations. It does not interpret the law, classify members' positions, or recommend a research strategy — your agent does that work on your behalf.

A realistic end-to-end run: advising a Manchester landlord on their eviction-notice exposure under the new Renters' Rights regime, including verifying a column citation an opponent quoted at you.

The lawyer's prompt to their agent:

"My client is a landlord with a private assured shorthold tenancy started in 2020, dwelling in Manchester. Can he still serve a Section 21 notice? I also need to check what was said about no-fault evictions in the Lords debate around 14 October 2025, and the divisions held. Opposing counsel cites HL Deb 14 Oct 2025, vol 849, col 200 — verify what's actually at that column."

A reasonable path the agent walks — and what the server returns at each step:

1. The statute — legislation_get_section(type="ukpga", year=1988, number=50, section="21"). The response carries extent (England + Wales — confirms the Manchester tenancy is in scope, Scotland is not), in_force (False — the section is marked repealed in CLML via <Repeal RetainText="true"> from Renters' Rights Act 2025), and version_date (the date the repeal commenced, not 1988's original enactment).

2. The new Act — legislation_search(query="Renters' Rights") then legislation_get_toc to locate commencement / transitional provisions, then legislation_get_section for the substantive sections.

3. The parliamentary debate — parliament_search_hansard(query="Renters' Rights Bill"). One call returns the corpus envelope: how many contributions, debates, divisions, written answers across the whole record, plus previews of the top debates and divisions touching the topic. Pick the relevant Lords debate from top_debates.

4. The full debate — read hansard://debate/{ext_id}/header for the ordered contribution index (every contribution carrying its citable column number via carry-forward), then hansard://debate/{ext_id}/contribution/{ext_id} for the full text of any specific intervention.

5. The divisions held — parliament_get_debate_divisions(debate_ext_id=...). Returns each formal vote with motion text, result, ayes/noes counts, and division IDs that chain into votes_get_division for the per-member voting record.

6. Verifying opposing counsel's citation — parliament_lookup_by_column(column_number="200", volume_number=849, house="Lords"). Resolves the OSCOLA footnote directly to its debate, returning the debate_ext_id that chains into hansard://debate/{ext}/header so you read the exact contribution opposing counsel quoted.

7. The case law — case_law_search(query="Renters' Rights Act 2025") for judgments already citing the Act, case_law_grep_judgment(slug=..., pattern=...) for the paragraphs that actually treat each section.

8. Citations for the brief — pass your draft into citations_parse for a clean OSCOLA-formatted list with canonical URLs.

Every response carries the metadata needed for an OSCOLA footnote: attributed_to, column_ref, citable column numbers, debate title, sitting date, public Hansard URL. The server returns the primary source verbatim — your agent and your judgement do the legal work.

Example output

Live output from the workflow above will be inserted here once the smoke test is run.

<!-- PASTE LIVE SMOKE OUTPUT FROM A REAL AGENT SESSION HERE -->

Tools reference

Case Law

Legislation

Parliament

Bills

Votes

Committees

Citations

Supported citation formats:

HMRC

hmrc_check_mtd_status requires HMRC_CLIENT_ID and HMRC_CLIENT_SECRET — register at developer.service.hmrc.gov.uk. Defaults to sandbox; set HMRC_API_BASE=https://api.service.hmrc.gov.uk for production.

Prompts

Workflow templates exposed as tools via PromptsAsTools (for ChatGPT) and natively on protocol-aware clients (Claude, Inspector). All produce citable evidence packs; none classify positions or recommend an argumentative line.

Important constraints

• Territorial extent always matters. legislation_get_section exposes the extent field. Acts that apply in England and Wales do not automatically apply in Scotland or Northern Ireland. Read this before citing a section as binding in a jurisdiction.

• Verifying opposing counsel's citations — when a brief cites HL Deb [date], vol N, col M, run parliament_lookup_by_column(column_number="M", volume_number=N, house="Lords") to resolve the citation to its debate, then read the header resource to find the contribution at the cited column. The endpoint only resolves Bound Volume citations; Daily Part columns shift on consolidation and aren't searchable this way.

• What this server does not do. It does not classify a member as supporting or opposing a policy, summarise a judgment's outcome in your client's favour, or recommend an argumentative line. Those are interpretive acts. The server returns the primary source verbatim with citation metadata; your agent and your judgement do the legal work.

• Legislation.gov.uk WAF. Some heavy Acts (notably the Companies Act 2006) intermittently fail on the hosted server due to upstream WAF rules that block our cloud IP range. The local install (uvx uk-legal-mcp) runs on your own IP and bypasses this.