UK Law MCP Server

UK Law MCP Server

The UK law corpus is now served through the Ansvar Gateway. Connect your AI assistant (Claude, Copilot, Cursor, custom MCP client) to https://gateway.ansvar.eu/mcp — one OAuth connection, free tier available, covering this corpus plus EU regulations, national law across 28 audited jurisdictions, and CVE/security intelligence, every result with a verbatim source citation. Start at https://ansvar.eu/docs/quickstart

Connect

Claude Code (one line):

claude mcp add ansvar --transport http https://gateway.ansvar.eu/mcp

Claude Desktop / Cursor — add to claude_desktop_config.json (or mcp.json):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "ansvar": {
      "type": "url",
      "url": "https://gateway.ansvar.eu/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Claude.ai — Settings → Connectors → Add custom connector → paste https://gateway.ansvar.eu/mcp

First request opens an OAuth signup flow (setup details: ansvar.eu/docs/quickstart). After signup, your client is bound to your account; tier (free / premium / team / company) determines fan-out, quota, and which downstream MCPs are reachable.

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Self-host this MCP

You can also clone this repo and build the corpus yourself. The schema, fetcher, and tool implementations all live here. What is not in the repo is the pre-built database — TDM and standards-licensing constraints on the upstream sources mean we host the corpus on Ansvar infrastructure rather than redistribute it as a public artifact.

Build your own: run this repo's ingestion script (entry-point varies per repo — typically scripts/ingest.sh, npm run ingest, or make ingest; check the repo root).

The legislation.gov.uk alternative for the AI age.

Query 3,241 UK statutes -- from the UK GDPR and Computer Misuse Act to the Employment Rights Act, Companies Act, and more -- directly from Claude, Cursor, or any MCP-compatible client.

If you're building legal tech, compliance tools, or doing UK legal research, this is your verified reference database.

Built by Ansvar Systems -- Stockholm, Sweden

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Why This Exists

UK legal research is scattered across legislation.gov.uk, BAILII, and EUR-Lex retained EU law indexes. Whether you're:

• A lawyer validating citations in a brief or contract
• A compliance officer checking if a statute is still in force or has been amended post-Brexit
• A legal tech developer building tools on UK law
• A researcher tracing legislative history from Bill to Act

...you shouldn't need dozens of browser tabs and manual PDF cross-referencing. Ask Claude. Get the exact provision. With context.

This MCP server makes UK law searchable, cross-referenceable, and AI-readable.

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Example Queries

Once connected, just ask naturally:

• "What does the UK GDPR say about data subject rights?"
• "Is the Computer Misuse Act still in force?"
• "Find provisions about employment rights under the Employment Rights Act 1996"
• "What EU adequacy status does the UK hold post-Brexit?"
• "Which UK laws implement the equivalent of the NIS2 Directive?"
• "Get the text of Section 7 of the Data Protection Act 2018"
• "Compare data breach notification requirements across UK GDPR and DPA 2018"
• "Validate the citation 'Computer Misuse Act 1990, s.1'"

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What's Included

Verified data only -- every citation is validated against official sources (legislation.gov.uk). Zero LLM-generated content.

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See It In Action

Why This Works

Verbatim Source Text (No LLM Processing):

• All statute text is ingested from legislation.gov.uk official sources
• Provisions are returned unchanged from SQLite FTS5 database rows
• Zero LLM summarization or paraphrasing -- the database contains statute text, not AI interpretations

Smart Context Management:

• Search returns ranked provisions with BM25 scoring (safe for context)
• Provision retrieval gives exact text by Act name and section number
• Cross-references help navigate without loading everything at once

Technical Architecture:

legislation.gov.uk API --> Parse --> SQLite --> FTS5 snippet() --> MCP response
                             ^                        ^
                      Provision parser         Verbatim database query

Traditional Research vs. This MCP

Traditional: Search legislation.gov.uk --> Download PDF --> Ctrl+F --> Cross-reference with Explanatory Notes --> Check for amendments --> Repeat

This MCP: "What does the UK GDPR say about data subject rights and how does it differ from the EU GDPR?" --> Done.

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Available Tools (13)

Core Legal Research Tools (8)

EU/International Law Integration Tools (5)

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EU Law Integration

The UK left the EU on 31 January 2020. The relationship between UK law and EU law is now one of adequacy and alignment, not membership.

The EU bridge tools in this MCP let you trace which UK statutes derive from EU directives, which provisions align with EU regulatory requirements, and where post-Brexit divergence has occurred.

Note: EU cross-references reflect derivation and alignment relationships. The UK is no longer subject to EU law, but understanding the EU origin of UK statutes is essential for cross-border compliance work.

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Data Sources & Freshness

All content is sourced from authoritative UK legal databases:

• legislation.gov.uk -- The official UK legislation database (National Archives)
• BAILII -- British and Irish Legal Information Institute (case law, premium tier)

Data Provenance

Automated Freshness Checks (Daily)

A daily GitHub Actions workflow monitors legislation.gov.uk for changes:

Verified data only -- every citation is validated against official sources. Zero LLM-generated content.

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Security

This project uses multiple layers of automated security scanning:

See SECURITY.md for the full policy and vulnerability reporting.

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Important Disclaimers

Legal Advice

THIS TOOL IS NOT LEGAL ADVICE

Statute text is sourced from legislation.gov.uk (The National Archives). However:

• This is a research tool, not a substitute for professional legal counsel
• Court case coverage is in the premium tier -- do not rely solely on this for case law research without the premium database
• Verify critical citations against primary sources for court filings
• EU cross-references reflect derivation and alignment, not current EU membership
• Northern Ireland has specific post-Brexit legal arrangements (Windsor Framework) that may not be fully reflected

Before using professionally, read: DISCLAIMER.md | PRIVACY.md

Client Confidentiality

Queries go through the Claude API. For privileged or confidential matters, use on-premise deployment. See PRIVACY.md for Law Society compliance guidance.

For guidance from your bar association: The Law Society (England & Wales) | Law Society of Scotland | Law Society of Northern Ireland

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Documentation

• EU Integration Guide -- Detailed EU cross-reference documentation
• EU Usage Examples -- Practical EU lookup examples
• Security Policy -- Vulnerability reporting and scanning details
• Disclaimer -- Legal disclaimers and professional use notices
• Privacy -- Client confidentiality and data handling

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Development

Setup

git clone https://github.com/Ansvar-Systems/UK-law-mcp
cd UK-law-mcp
npm install
npm run build
npm test

Running Locally

npm run dev                                       # Start MCP server
npx @anthropic/mcp-inspector node dist/index.js   # Test with MCP Inspector

Data Management

npm run ingest                    # Ingest statutes from legislation.gov.uk
npm run build:db                  # Rebuild SQLite database
npm run drift:detect              # Run drift detection against anchors
npm run check-updates             # Check for amendments and new Acts

Performance

• Search Speed: <100ms for most FTS5 queries
• Database Size: ~3,606 MB (comprehensive -- full UK statute corpus)
• Reliability: 100% ingestion success rate across 3,241 statutes

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More Ansvar MCPs

Full fleet coverage at ansvar.eu/coverage.

Contributing

Contributions welcome! See CONTRIBUTING.md for guidelines.

Priority areas:

• Court case law expansion (BAILII integration)
• Northern Ireland-specific legal provisions
• Scottish law divergence tracking
• Historical statute versions and amendment tracking

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Roadmap

• Core statute database with FTS5 search

• Full corpus ingestion (3,241 statutes, 512,651 provisions)

• EU/international law alignment tools

• Vercel Streamable HTTP deployment

• Daily freshness checks against legislation.gov.uk

• Premium case law (65,026 judgments)

• Premium preparatory works (3,838 documents)

• Northern Ireland Windsor Framework annotations

• Scottish law divergence markers

• Historical statute versions (amendment tracking)

• Welsh language provision coverage

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Citation

If you use this MCP server in academic research:

@software{uk_law_mcp_2026,
  author = {Ansvar Systems AB},
  title = {UK Law MCP Server: Production-Grade Legal Research Tool},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://github.com/Ansvar-Systems/UK-law-mcp},
  note = {3,241 UK statutes with 512,651 provisions sourced from legislation.gov.uk}
}

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License

Apache License 2.0. See LICENSE for details.

Data Licenses

• Statutes & Legislation: OGL-3.0 — UK Crown copyright under CDPA 1988 ss. 163–164 with an explicit Open Government Licence v3.0 grant on legislation.gov.uk. UK is NOT a statutory-PD regime; the open-licence grant is the operative permission. Commercial reuse permitted with attribution; no share-alike. Required attribution text: "Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0." UK Parliamentary content (Hansard, bills) is Parliamentary copyright (not Crown copyright) and falls under the separate Open Parliament Licence v3.0. Verified 2026-05-17.
• Case Law: BAILII (used under terms of service, premium tier)
• EU Metadata: EUR-Lex (EU public domain)

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About Ansvar Systems

We build AI-accelerated compliance and legal research tools for the global market. This MCP server makes 3,241 UK statutes searchable from any AI client -- no browser tabs, no PDFs, no manual cross-referencing.

ansvar.eu -- Stockholm, Sweden

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