What can you do with this server?

This MCP server connects AI assistants to UK legal and parliamentary data through 24 read-only tools (23 require no API keys) across 8 modules: Case Law * Search UK judgments by full text, court, judge, party, or date range * Search within a specific judgment using text/regex patterns * Access judgment headers, paragraph indexes, and individual paragraphs via URI templates Legislation * Search Acts of Parliament and Statutory Instruments by title or full text * Retrieve tables of contents, specific sections (with territorial extent and in-force status), and point-in-time historical versions Parliament * Search Hansard debates by keyword, member, or date * Run a "vibe check" on a policy topic — uses LLM sentiment analysis to identify supporters, opponents, and concerns * Look up MPs/Lords by name; retrieve their debate contributions and registered financial interests (donations, shareholdings, directorships) * Search Parliament petitions by keyword and state Bills * Search parliamentary bills by keyword, session, house, or stage * Get full bill details: sponsors, legislative stages, long title, and Royal Assent date Votes * Search Commons and Lords division records by keyword or date * Get full division details including how each member voted Committees * Search select committees by name and house; get membership and contact details * Search oral and written evidence submitted to committees Citations (OSCOLA) * Parse and classify all OSCOLA citations from free text (neutral citations, law reports, legislation, SIs, retained EU law) * Resolve a single citation to its canonical TNA or legislation.gov.uk URL * Map the full citation network of a judgment HMRC Tax * Look up UK VAT rates for any commodity or service * Check a business's Making Tax Digital (MTD) VAT mandate status (requires HMRC OAuth credentials) * Search GOV.UK for HMRC guidance documents Workflow Prompts — four built-in multi-step research workflows: summarise_act, compare_legislation, policy_vibe_check, and member_position_analysis.

How do I use UK Legal Research MCP Server?

1. Click on "Install Server". 2. Wait a few minutes for the server to deploy. Once ready, it will show a "Started" state. 3. In the chat, type @ followed by the MCP server name and your instructions, e.g., "@UK Legal Research MCP Server search for recent Supreme Court judgments regarding duty of care" That's it! The server will respond to your query, and you can continue using it as needed. Here is a step-by-step guide with screenshots.

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UK Legal Research MCP Server

by paulieb89

Overview Schema Related Servers Score Discussions

Python

Remote

uk-legal-mcp

SafeSkill 92/100 uk-legal-mcp MCP server

A Model Context Protocol server for UK legal research. Connects AI assistants to case law, legislation, parliamentary debates, bills, votes, committees, OSCOLA citation parsing, and HMRC tax data through a single endpoint.

24 tools across 8 modules. One connection. Read-only. No API keys required for 23 of 24 tools.

MCP Client (Claude, Cursor, etc.)
        |
        v
  uk-legal-mcp gateway  (Streamable HTTP)
  +----------------------------------------------------+
  |                                                    |
  |  case_law      TNA Find Case Law API               |
  |  legislation   legislation.gov.uk Atom feed         |
  |  parliament    Hansard API + Members API            |
  |  bills         Parliamentary Bills API              |
  |  votes         Commons + Lords division records     |
  |  committees    Select committees + evidence         |
  |  citations     OSCOLA regex parser (no network)     |
  |  hmrc          HMRC sandbox/prod + GOV.UK search    |
  |                                                    |
  +----------------------------------------------------+

Quickstart

Connect to the hosted server

Add to your Claude Desktop config (~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json):

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

Then try:

"Search for case law about cycling accidents"
"Get section 172 of the Companies Act 2006"
"Parse the citations in: The court applied Donoghue v Stevenson [1932] AC 562 and s.2 Occupiers' Liability Act 1957"
"What is parliament saying about short selling?"

Run locally

pip install -e .
python -m src.gateway
# Server starts on http://localhost:8000/mcp

Inspect with the MCP Inspector:

npx @modelcontextprotocol/inspector http://localhost:8000/mcp

Tools

Case Law

Tool	What it does
`case_law_search`	Full-text search of UK judgments. Filter by court, judge, party, date range.
`case_law_grep_judgment`	Find paragraphs in a judgment matching a pattern. Returns `{eId, snippet, match}` per hit.

Resource templates (read via resources/read or the read_resource tool generated by ResourcesAsTools):

URI template	Returns
`judgment://{slug*}/header`	Metadata header (parties, judges, citation). ~1k tokens.
`judgment://{slug*}/index`	Paragraph eId + first-line per row. ~4k tokens. Walk this to discover paragraphs.
`judgment://{slug*}/para/{eId}`	A single paragraph including its sub-paragraphs. 400–1700 tokens.

Upstream: TNA Find Case Law (Atom/XML). Rate limit: 1,000 req/5 min. Cached 1 hour.

Legislation

Tool	What it does
`legislation_search`	Search Acts of Parliament and Statutory Instruments on legislation.gov.uk.
`legislation_get_toc`	Table of contents for an Act — parts, chapters, sections, schedules.
`legislation_get_section`	Retrieve a specific section with territorial extent, in-force status, and version date.

Resource templates (alternative to the tools above for clients that prefer URI-addressed reads):

URI template	Returns
`legislation://{type}/{year}/{number}`	Full Act/SI as CLML XML.
`legislation://{type}/{year}/{number}/section/{section}`	A specific section as CLML XML.
`legislation://{type}/{year}/{number}/toc`	Flat `id: title` lines for the table of contents.
`legislation://{type}/{year}/{number}/{date}`	Point-in-time CLML for a YYYY-MM-DD date.

Upstream: legislation.gov.uk (CLML XML + Atom feed). Cached 24 hours. Uses curl_cffi with Chrome impersonation to defeat CloudFront 437; Companies Act 2006 currently hits an AWS WAF JS challenge intermittently.

Note: Always check the extent field. A section may apply to England and Wales but not Scotland or Northern Ireland.

Parliament

Tool	What it does
`parliament_search_hansard`	Search Hansard debate contributions by exact phrase.
`parliament_vibe_check`	Assess parliamentary reception of a policy topic. Searches Hansard, then uses LLM sampling to classify sentiment, supporters, opponents, and concerns.
`parliament_find_member`	Look up an MP or Lord by name. Returns member ID for use with `member_debates`.
`parliament_member_debates`	Retrieve a specific member's Hansard contributions, optionally filtered by topic.
`parliament_member_interests`	Get a member's registered financial interests (donations, shareholdings, etc.).
`parliament_search_petitions`	Search UK Parliament petitions by keyword.

Upstream: hansard-api.parliament.uk + members-api.parliament.uk + petition.parliament.uk. Not cached (live data).

Bills

Tool	What it does
`bills_search_bills`	Search current and historical parliamentary bills by keyword, session, or type.
`bills_get_bill`	Get full bill detail — stages, sponsors, publications.

Upstream: bills-api.parliament.uk. Cached 1 hour.

Votes

Tool	What it does
`votes_search_divisions`	Search Commons and Lords division records by keyword or date.
`votes_get_division`	Get full division detail — vote counts, how each member voted.

Upstream: commonsvotes-api.parliament.uk + lordsvotes-api.parliament.uk. Cached 24 hours.

Committees

Tool	What it does
`committees_search_committees`	Search parliamentary select committees by keyword.
`committees_get_committee`	Get committee detail — membership, sub-committees.
`committees_search_evidence`	Search oral and written evidence submissions to committees.

Upstream: committees-api.parliament.uk. Cached 1 hour.

Citations

Tool	What it does
`citations_parse`	Extract all OSCOLA citations from free text. Resolves to canonical URLs. Disambiguates bare court codes via LLM sampling.
`citations_resolve`	Parse and resolve a single citation string to its canonical URL.
`citations_network`	Fetch a judgment from TNA and map every citation within it — cases, legislation, SIs, EU law.

Self-contained. No external API. Zero network dependency (except citations_network which fetches the judgment XML).

Supported citation formats:

Format	Example
Neutral citation	`[2024] UKSC 12`
Law report (with or without volume)	`[2024] 1 WLR 100`, `[1932] AC 562`
Legislation section	`s.47 Companies Act 2006`
Statutory Instrument	`SI 2018/1234`
Retained EU law	`Regulation (EU) 2016/679`

HMRC

Tool	What it does
`hmrc_get_vat_rate`	VAT rate lookup for any commodity or service. Static table current as of Autumn Statement 2023.
`hmrc_check_mtd_status`	Check Making Tax Digital VAT mandate status for a VRN. Requires HMRC OAuth credentials.
`hmrc_search_guidance`	Search GOV.UK for HMRC guidance documents.

hmrc_get_vat_rate and hmrc_search_guidance require no credentials. 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

Four workflow prompts are available for multi-step legal research. Exposed as tools via PromptsAsTools for ChatGPT; accessible natively on protocol-aware clients (Claude, Inspector).

Prompt	Module	Description
`summarise_act`	legislation	Structured summary of a UK Act or SI
`compare_legislation`	legislation	Comparative analysis of two pieces of legislation on a topic
`policy_vibe_check`	parliament	Parliamentary reception assessment for a policy
`member_position_analysis`	parliament	A member's position and voting record on a topic

Architecture

src/
  gateway.py            FastMCP gateway — mounts all modules, applies middleware
  deps.py               Shared httpx clients (lifespan-managed) + error formatting
  modules/
    case_law/           TNA Find Case Law (Atom/XML parsing)
    legislation/        legislation.gov.uk (CLML XML + Atom feed)
    parliament/         Hansard API + Members API + Petitions (JSON)
    bills/              Parliamentary Bills API (JSON)
    votes/              Commons + Lords division records (JSON)
    committees/         Select committees + evidence (JSON)
    citations/          OSCOLA regex engine (compiled once, lru_cache)
    hmrc/               HMRC OAuth + GOV.UK search (JSON)
tests/
  test_citations.py     35 unit tests — regex patterns, resolution, disambiguation

Each module is a standalone FastMCP instance mounted into the gateway with a namespace prefix (case_law_, legislation_, etc.). All modules share a single httpx client pool via the gateway's lifespan context.

Middleware stack (gateway level):

Middleware	Purpose
`ErrorHandlingMiddleware`	Catches unhandled exceptions
`StructuredLoggingMiddleware`	JSON logging with duration and payload size
`DetailedTimingMiddleware`	Per-tool timing logs
`ResponseLimitingMiddleware`	80,000 char cap (LegalDocML XML can exceed 200k)

Per-module caching: ResponseCachingMiddleware with TTLs — case_law (1hr), legislation (24hr), bills (1hr), votes (24hr), committees (1hr), hmrc (90 days). Parliament and citations are not cached.

Deployment

Fly.io

fly auth login
fly launch --name uk-legal-mcp --region lhr
fly deploy

Optional secrets:

fly secrets set HMRC_CLIENT_ID=your_id HMRC_CLIENT_SECRET=your_secret
# For production HMRC (default is sandbox):
fly secrets set HMRC_API_BASE=https://api.service.hmrc.gov.uk

Docker

docker build -t uk-legal-mcp .
docker run -p 8000:8000 uk-legal-mcp

Testing

pip install -e '.[test]'  # or: pip install pytest
pytest tests/test_citations.py -v

All 35 citation tests run offline with no API credentials.

Upstream APIs and Licences

Source	API	Licence	Auth
TNA Find Case Law	`caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk`	Open Justice Licence	None
legislation.gov.uk	`legislation.gov.uk`	OGL v3	None
UK Parliament Hansard	`hansard-api.parliament.uk`	Open Parliament Licence	None
UK Parliament Members	`members-api.parliament.uk`	Open Parliament Licence	None
UK Parliament Petitions	`petition.parliament.uk`	Open Parliament Licence	None
UK Parliament Bills	`bills-api.parliament.uk`	Open Parliament Licence	None
UK Parliament Votes	`commonsvotes-api.parliament.uk`	Open Parliament Licence	None
UK Parliament Committees	`committees-api.parliament.uk`	Open Parliament Licence	None
HMRC	`test-api.service.hmrc.gov.uk`	OGL / commercial terms	OAuth 2.0
GOV.UK Search	`www.gov.uk/api/search.json`	OGL v3	None

Stack

Python 3.10+
FastMCP v3 (streamable HTTP transport)
httpx (async HTTP with connection pooling)
lxml (LegalDocML and CLML XML parsing)
Pydantic v2 (input validation, output serialisation)
Fly.io (London region, auto-stop/start)

Install Server

license - permissive license

quality

maintenance

How are these scores calculated?

Maintenance

–Maintainers

<1hResponse time

5dRelease cycle

3Releases (12mo)

Resources

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