New shocking research from Bail for Immigration Detainees (BID) has confirmed just how difficult it is to find legal help for an asylum claim, inside or outside the detention system.
This state of affairs severely affects women held in isolated Derwentside IRC, where finding good legal in person representation is a huge hurdle. And SERCO’s disgraceful failure to provide adequate internet and mobile connectivity makes matters worse, badly hampering access to legal advice.
You’d think Derwentside Immigration Removal Centre’s name means all women brought there have no more need of lawyers – that they are just waiting to be sent out of the country, following cut and dried asylum decisions. But no: many inside the IRC are still in the process of appealing their decisions, and with the right legal representation would be released from agonising indefinite detention into the community again.
Because this issue affects so many women in the IRC we are publishing the Executive Summary from the report, along with a link to the full report.
BID Legal Advice Survey – Spring 2026 Executive Summary
• Access to legal representation in immigration detention has yet again reached its
lowest point in BID’s records. Only 27% of survey respondents were represented.
This is the second consecutive Legal Advice Survey to have found lowest ever levels of
legal representation.
• The key factors preventing access to representation are a lack of access to legal aid
and the limited capacity of legal aid immigration providers.
• 53% of respondents stated that they or a family member had worked on their own
immigration case, or that they used the internet to research their case.
• Few respondents were given advice on immigration bail or information on Exceptional
Case Funding for legal aid.
• The overall uncertainty and lack of legal advice are immensely challenging for people
in immigration detention. As one respondent said, “It is hard to persist without
knowing what is happening/hearing no news about the outcome.”This report was co-written by Tigs Louis-Puttick and Lauren Fox, with research undertaken by
BPP volunteers.
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