UK Legal Research

USE THIS TOOL WHEN you know the UK VAT category name for a good or service and want its VAT treatment. Exact named-category lookup, not a free-text VAT classifier or tax advice. The query must equal a category name, ignoring only case, spacing, hyphens and apostrophe style. Extra qualifying words are never discarded: 'pet food' is its own category, and 'baby food' is not 'food'. A match returns `rate` (standard, reduced, zero or exempt), `rate_percentage` (None for exempt), conditions in `notes`, the GOV.UK `source_url`, and that entry's `verified_on` date. An unresolved query returns no ra…

USE THIS TOOL WHEN discovering HMRC GOV.UK guidance on a topic. Returns official-search titles, URLs, descriptions, and published dates; descriptions do not establish the contents of a cited page. AFTER calling, use hmrc_get_manual_page when a result is an HMRC internal-manual URL. Source: GOV.UK's HMRC-filtered content search API.

USE THIS TOOL WHEN you have a judgment slug and need metadata (parties, judges, neutral citation, court, dates). Call case_law_search FIRST to get the slug. AFTER calling, use judgment_get_index to discover paragraphs, then judgment_get_paragraph to read specific ones. Authoritative source for UK judgment metadata.

USE THIS TOOL WHEN you have a judgment slug and want the paragraph navigation index (eId + preview line for every paragraph). Call case_law_search FIRST to get the slug. AFTER calling, pass an eId from the returned list into judgment_get_paragraph to read that paragraph's full text, or use case_law_grep_judgment for content search across all paragraphs.

USE THIS TOOL WHEN you have a judgment slug + LegalDocML eId and want that paragraph's full text. Call judgment_get_index FIRST to discover available eIds (or use case_law_grep_judgment to locate paragraphs by content). Returns the paragraph XML content (400–1,700 tokens typical).

USE THIS TOOL WHEN you have a known Act / SI and want the parsed text of a specific section, regulation, or article, with extent and in-force metadata. Returns the provision's own text and heading, never a neighbouring Part/Chapter. Also returns extent, in-force/prospective data, and truncation metadata. Pass the bare number: the tool handles Act sections and SI regulations/articles. A missing provision raises not_found rather than returning a plausible neighbouring node. AFTER calling, check `extent` before relying on the provision and inspect content_truncated for long text. Call legislati…

USE THIS TOOL WHEN you have a known Act / SI and want the structural table of contents (parts, chapters, individual sections/regulations/articles). Returns XML ids and titles in document order, including Parts, chapters, crossheadings, and provisions; a rare untitled provision is retained as its bare id. Results are paginated with offset/limit. AFTER calling, pass a provision's bare number (for example `47`, not `section-47`) to legislation_get_section. Check has_more and total_items for large statutes. Use read_resource with the legislation:// toc URI for the full raw listing. Source: legi…

USE THIS TOOL WHEN searching UK Acts and Statutory Instruments by title, phrase, or full-text. Returns ranked results: title, type, year, number, legislation.gov.uk URL, and next_steps hints (toc URI, section template). AFTER calling, chain to legislation_get_toc then legislation_get_section for structural drill-in. Filter discipline: `type` and `year` are exact-match. Use only when you already know the value. For currency-driven searches, query by phrase and read the returned year; guessing an exact year can zero results. For broader concept queries across content, set `fulltext=True`. If t…

List all available prompts. Returns JSON with prompt metadata including name, description, and optional arguments.

List all available resources and resource templates. Returns JSON with resource metadata. Static resources have a 'uri' field, while templates have a 'uri_template' field with placeholders like {name}.

USE THIS TOOL WHEN you have a member's name and need their integer member_id. Returns all members matching the name query, each with the integer `id`, party, constituency, house, and current-sitting status. Disambiguates common-name matches (e.g. "Lord Smith" returns multiple peers). CALL THIS BEFORE any tool that filters by member_id — including parliament_get_debate_contributions, parliament_member_debates, and parliament_member_interests. Name → ID first; ID-based filtering second. Skipping this step and text-searching by name returns unrelated results (see parliament_search_hansard's ant…

USE THIS TOOL WHEN you have a debate_ext_id and want verbatim contributions, optionally filtered to one member. Canonical path for "everything a member said in this debate" regardless of vocabulary — text-search tools (parliament_member_debates, parliament_search_hansard) filter by contribution TEXT, dropping members who spoke without using your phrase verbatim. This tool filters by MemberId on the debate's Items list, so vocabulary doesn't matter. Typical chain: parliament_find_member(name) → member_id, then parliament_search_hansard or parliament_lookup_by_column → debate_ext_id, then this…

USE THIS TOOL WHEN you have a debate_ext_id and want the divisions (formal votes) held within it. Most debates contain no divisions — Business of the House sittings, statements, urgent questions, debates without a vote. A populated list typically appears around bill stages, motions, and contested amendments. Empty list is the honest result, not a failure mode. Each returned division carries TWO IDs: - `id` — Hansard-side reference. Useful for cross-referencing in Hansard. - `votes_id` — Lords/Commons Votes API ID (cross-resolved by date+number). AFTER calling, pass `votes_id` as `div…

USE THIS TOOL WHEN you have an OSCOLA-style Hansard citation (column + volume + house) and need the debate. Example input: 'HL Deb 14 Oct 2025, vol 849, col 200'. AFTER calling, read the contribution at the cited column via read_resource(uri="hansard://debate/{debate_ext_id}/header") — or, equivalently, call parliament_get_debate_contributions(debate_ext_id) for the full list as a structured tool response. Each match carries: - `contribution_count` — real contribution count from the debate's Items - `source` / `source_code` — citation finality (1=Rolling, 2=Daily, 3=BoundVolume, 4=Hi…

USE THIS TOOL WHEN you have a member_id and want contributions where THAT member used a specific topic phrase verbatim (text-body search). CALL parliament_find_member(name) FIRST to obtain the integer member_id. This is a name-based text-body search — it matches contributions whose TEXT contains the topic phrase. A member who spoke in a debate but didn't use your phrase verbatim is filtered out. For verbatim retrieval of every contribution by a member in a known debate (regardless of vocabulary), use parliament_get_debate_contributions(debate_ext_id, member_id=...) instead. Each contributio…

USE THIS TOOL WHEN you have a member_id and need their registered financial interests (donations, directorships, land, gifts). CALL parliament_find_member(name) FIRST to obtain the integer member_id. Returns ONE PAGE of interests (default 20, caller controls via limit). For prolific members (big donors, many directorships, extensive land holdings), re-call with offset=offset+returned while has_more is true to paginate. Description text is capped per max_description_chars; raise it for forensic provenance work that needs the full narrative. This is the authoritative source for UK MP and peer…

USE THIS TOOL WHEN you want debate-level corpus signals on a topic — by_house, by_year, by_section breakdowns — without reading every contribution. Aggregates Hansard debate-level signals on a topic. Pure counts — no LLM, no editorial labels. Sweeps /search/Debates.json with pagination (up to max_debates_scanned), then aggregates by_house, by_section, by_year, by_month, and top_debates from debate metadata. Also captures the corpus-wide envelope counts (total_contributions, total_written_statements, total_divisions, etc.) from /search.json for cross-section scope. AFTER calling, pick a debat…

USE THIS TOOL WHEN searching Hansard by topic, bill title, or text phrase. Returns source-backed contributions with citation-grade metadata: member_id, attributed_to, column_ref, debate_id, debate_ext_id, contribution_ext_id, and public URL. The independent corpus envelope is optional enrichment: if it cannot be retrieved after one bounded retry, contributions still return with enrichment_status="degraded" and an explicit warning; omitted corpus totals and previews must not be inferred. AFTER calling, drill into full content via read_resource(uri="hansard://debate/{debate_ext_id}/header") — o…

USE THIS TOOL WHEN searching UK Parliament petitions by keyword or topic. Returns petition title, state, signature count, and dates for government response or parliamentary debate if applicable. Filter by state (open, closed, debated, etc.) to narrow to live or historical petitions. This is the authoritative source for UK Parliament petitions (petition.parliament.uk).

Read a registered server resource URI, not an ordinary web URL. USE WHEN you have a judgment://, legislation://, hansard://, or server:// URI returned by this server. Do not use for https:// URLs; use the source-specific tool instead (for a canonical GOV.UK HMRC internal-manual URL, call hmrc_get_manual_page). Returns the resource content as a string. Binary content is base64-encoded. AFTER calling, use the returned primary-source content and URI in citations; if the URI is rejected, follow the named source-specific tool rather than treating the URL as retrieved evidence. Source: registere…

USE THIS TOOL WHEN you have a division_id + house and want the full member-by-member voting record. Voter lists are truncated to 100 per side to fit response limits; total voter counts are always accurate regardless of truncation. Chain from votes_search_divisions or parliament_get_debate_divisions (which cross-resolves Hansard division refs into votes-API division_ids).

USE THIS TOOL WHEN searching Commons or Lords formal votes by topic, date, or member. Returns one page of division summaries (title, date, vote counts, pass/fail) plus `total`, the source's count of all matching divisions. While `has_more` is true, re-call with offset=offset+returned. AFTER calling, pass division_id + house into votes_get_division for the full member-by-member voter lists. Authoritative source for UK parliamentary vote records.