This Legal Aid order is a technical Ministry of Justice instrument, but it does three practical things at once. It updates the scope of civil legal aid for the new anti-social behaviour orders created by the Crime and Policing Act 2026, it settles an ambiguity in the Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures regime, and it aligns foreign power threat activity measures with that TPIM approach. Ministers told Parliament the aim was to keep legal aid legislation consistent with wider changes in public order and national security law. (hansard.parliament.uk) The commencement pattern matters. The TPIM and foreign power provisions take effect the day after the Order is made, while the anti-social behaviour provisions start only when the relevant sections of the Crime and Policing Act 2026 are themselves brought into force. For practitioners, that means the national security changes and the anti-social behaviour changes should not be treated as a single commencement event. (commonsbusiness.parliament.uk)
On anti-social behaviour, the Order inserts a new paragraph 35A into Schedule 1 to LASPO so that civil legal services are in scope for a person facing a respect order. It also rewrites paragraph 36 so legal aid continues for the older section 1 injunctions where relevant, and applies expressly to youth injunctions and the new housing injunctions. The Ministry of Justice says the purpose is to preserve continuity as the earlier anti-social behaviour injunction model is replaced or divided into new forms. (commonsbusiness.parliament.uk) That distinction is more than drafting tidying. The explanatory memorandum says youth injunctions replace the previous anti-social behaviour injunction model for 10 to 17-year-olds, while housing injunctions deal with housing-related anti-social behaviour by adults aged 18 and over. Without these amendments, housing injunctions would have sat outside LASPO despite serving much the same role as the older regime in housing cases. (commonsbusiness.parliament.uk)
Respect orders are the most visible addition. Under the Crime and Policing Act 2026, they sit in new section A1 of the 2014 Act, apply to adults, and may be sought by local authorities, housing providers and chief officers of police. The Act allows applications to the High Court or county court, including without notice in some cases, and breach is a criminal offence. (legislation.gov.uk) That helps explain why civil legal aid remains in scope. The Ministry of Justice describes these orders as carrying serious effects for individual rights, and in housing cases for housing security as well. In policy terms, the Government is not creating a new legal aid principle here; it is carrying forward the existing position that respondents to serious civil behaviour orders should have access to funded advice and representation, subject to the usual means and merits tests. (commonsbusiness.parliament.uk)
The TPIM changes are narrower, but they will matter immediately for specialist practitioners. The Order amends the means regulations so that non-means-tested provision is clearly limited to legal help in relation to a TPIM notice, including when a notice is being contemplated. It removes the earlier suggestion that legal representation in TPIM proceedings was also outside the means test. (commonsbusiness.parliament.uk) The reason is structural. The Ministry of Justice explains that advice on a TPIM notice falls under paragraph 45 of Schedule 1 to LASPO, but TPIM review hearings and appeals are treated as judicial review proceedings and therefore sit under paragraph 19, where legal representation is means-tested. The Order is therefore less a change of direction than a statement in legislation of what the department says has already been the position in practice. (commonsbusiness.parliament.uk)
The same Part of the Order also inserts a new regulation 22A into the merits regulations. In plain English, it makes clear that help at court and investigative representation are not appropriate forms of civil legal aid for proceedings under the Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures Act 2011. The Ministry of Justice says the earlier wording was uncertain because it referred only to one LASPO gateway and not to TPIM proceedings heard on judicial review principles. (commonsbusiness.parliament.uk) For advisers, the practical result is a sharper separation between early advice and later representation. Non-means-tested legal help remains available at the notice stage, but the wider package of representation services is routed through the ordinary judicial review funding rules once the case moves into review or appeal proceedings. (commonsbusiness.parliament.uk)
The foreign power threat activity amendments take the same model across to the Part 2 notice regime created by the National Security Act 2023. That Act inserted a new LASPO paragraph 45B so that individuals subject to Part 2 notices can receive civil legal services, and the 2026 Order now makes the means and merits regulations match that gateway more closely. (legislation.gov.uk) Under the new text, legal help in relation to foreign power threat activity prevention and investigation measures is available without a means test, including where such a notice is contemplated. At the same time, help at court and investigative representation are specified as inappropriate services for these cases, mirroring the TPIM position. The Ministry of Justice says that approach is justified because these measures can restrict liberty, movement, associations and digital activity, and may involve sensitive evidence. (commonsbusiness.parliament.uk)
For caseworkers and providers, the Order changes three things in day-to-day funding decisions: scope, funding route and timing. Scope is extended expressly to respect orders, youth injunctions and housing injunctions once the underpinning Crime and Policing Act provisions commence. The funding route for TPIMs is clarified so that legal help and legal representation are no longer blurred, and the same distinction is now written into the foreign power notice regime. (commonsbusiness.parliament.uk) The Ministry of Justice says there was no formal consultation because the instrument does not alter the wider policy line, and it expects no significant effect on business, charities or voluntary bodies. The Legal Aid Agency is expected to update guidance, and the 2024 Standard Civil Contract will also be revised to reflect the amendments. Read in that light, this is not a major expansion of legal aid, but a technical correction with direct consequences for how eligibility is assessed in live cases. (commonsbusiness.parliament.uk)