1. Bills
Bills may be introduced in either the House of Commons or the House of Lords. Three classes of bills exist: Public, Private and Hybrid (e.g Channel Tunnel). Public bills that are introduced by a minister are referred to as Government Bills, those introduced by backbenchers are usually referred to as Private Members' Bill (not to be confused with Private Bills). Government bills usually pass but only 10% of private members bills survive through both houses. Another form of bill (usually public bills) is a consolidation bill - bringing together and cleaning up previous pieces of legislation.
Copies of bills are available from The Stationery Office (formerly HMSO), the equivalent of the GPO after an initial reading in Parliament. Bills must then pass through a second reading, a committee (in the Commons it will usually be one of maybe 10 standing committees lettered A, B, C, etc, or it may be a committee of the whole house, or a select committee), a report, and a third reading. The bill is then referred to the other house where it repeats the process before being sent back to the originating house for final approval. If the two houses disagree on the changes made, each house assigns bill managers to iron out the differences in meetings. If approved the bill is ready for receiving the Royal Assent and becoming an Act of Parliament. Amendments are usually made either after second reading, in Committee, in the report stage or after being referred to the other House for approval. Bills die if they do not pass through all these stages before the end of the parliamentary session (exceptions to this include revenue bills and instances if the bill is introduced in two successive sessions and approved by the Commons but not by the Lords - e.g War Crimes Act 1991).
Citation to bills include initials of the House, the session of parliament, the bill number in parenthisis (if Lords bill) or brackets [if Commons bill]: H.L. Bill 1994-95 (15) Ministry of Defence Police Bill. Minor amendments to a bill result in a change to the original number (15a), however complete overhaul of a bill results in a new number. A New bill number is used when it is passed to the other House for approval. Weekly Information Bulletin is the best source for tracing amendments and bill numbers.
Legislation can also be traced through the parliamentary process by using The Official Report of Debates ("Hansard" - see below),or by using the "Progress of Bills" section in Current Law Monthly Digest.
2. Acts of Parliament
There are nine classes of acts of parliament: Amending Acts, Codes, Consolidating Acts, Declaratory Acts, Enabling Acts, Explanatory Acts, Remedial Acts, Repealing Acts, Validating Acts.
Since 1963 Acts have usually been referred to by their short title, the year of enactment and preferably the chapter number (e.g. Theft Act 1968 (cap.35)). Each act is numbered sequentially by assigning a chapter number. Older acts (pre-1963) are cited using the regnal year(s) spanning the session of parliament and chapter number (e.g. 3 Edw. 7, cap.36 is a reference to the Motor Car Act of 1903 which was the 36th act passed in the third year of the reign of Edward VII). Approximately 60 acts are passed each year.
Queen's Printer's Copy: The Stationery Office publishes these separately and they are usually available soon after the Act receives Royal Assent. More and more are becoming available over the Internet. In the US these are known as slip laws.
Statutes In Force: This is the official compilation of the statutes (comparable to USC although note that it is not a codified arrangement!). This series of over 100 looseleaf binders containing the acts currently in force is arranged by 131 subject headings. It is not updated very quickly, nor is it annotated very much.
Public General Acts and Measures: Annual bound volumes comparable to the United States Statutes at Large. Acts are presented in chronological (i.e. chapter number) order without annotations.
Law Reports - Statutes (KD135 L3): Published by the Incorporated Council of Law Reporting, this is a reprint of the Public General Acts and Measures containing the text of the act as passed by Parliament. Unannotated.
Halsbury's Statutes (KD135 H3 G74 1985): This is one of the most important tools in English legal research and is regarded as the most useful compilation of English statutes (the USCA or USCS of English legal research). This annotated set is now in the fourth edition (grey coloured) and comprises 50 main volumes arranged by subject, an annual cumulative supplement, an index volume, a number of current service binders (binders A-F) and a noter-up binder. Most statutory research begins with consulting Halsbury's.
Butterworth's Annotated Legislation Service (KD135 B8 A56): Reprints the text of selected acts together with commentary. Very selective so that each act may be published as a separate volume of the series. The volumes are heavily annotated and are a good place to look for information on a particular statute. Index volume is published every two years. Older volumes are known by the title Butterworth's Emergency Legislation Service because they were produced during war time.
Current Law Statutes Service: Originating Full text of all public general and private acts are published once the Royal Assent has been received. Many of the acts are annotated. Acts first appear in booklet format (one month after publication by The S.O.) and are filed in the Service File, later the acts for the current year are cumulated and published in annual volumes. The set includes a table of statutes back to 1700 and a table of parliamentary debate going back to 1950. The companion set to this service, Scottish Current Law Statutes Annotated, is available at Tarlton (although now non-current) and contains both Scottish and English legislation.
3. Older statutes
Statutes of the Realm (Rare Books KD129 1101): This fairly comprehensive set, produced by the Record Commission, covers statutes from 1235-1713. The set is well indexed with alphabetical, chronological and subject access.
Statutes at Large (Rare Books KD130 1225): A generic title (similar to the Nominate reports for case law) that covers a variety of collections of statutes published in the 18th and 19th century. The most famous of these collections is known by the popular name "Pickering's Statutes" (compiler of the majority of the volumes).
Acts and Ordinances of the Interregnum (KD130 1642): This set contains the acts of the Commonwealth. These acts are not included in the other major sets of older statutes.
4. Indexes to statutes
Although many of the titles listed above are well indexed (in particular Halsbury's) there are a couple of S.O. titles that are of use in tracing statutes.
Index to the Statutes (KD142.4 I5 1973): The title of this two-volume work says it all. This set provides a detailed subject index to statutes dating from 1235-199_. References are to the official compilation of statutes, Statutes in Force. A little out of date - published biennially.
Chronological Table of the Statutes (KD142.3 C5): A chronological arrangement of the statutes from 1235-1996. This set contains statutes that are in force (listed in bold type) as well as those that have been repealed. Includes table of acts from Scotland's Parliament as well as local and personal acts. Once again it is not a particularly current publication due to its biennial publication schedule.
5. Legislation in force
A major component of legislative research in the UK is determining not only whether a particular statute is still in force but also whether all or part of it is yet in force(e.g. Easter Act 1928 not yet in force). The commencement provision in most statutes determines when sections of the act come into force (this may be a fixed date, after an elapsed period, or delegated to a minister). To determine whether a statute is yet in force or whether it or certain sections of it have been repealed or amended there are a variety of sources that can be consulted.
Is it In force? (KD142.4 I8 199_): This appropriately titled publication is issued annually as a companion volume to Halsbury's Statutes and serves to provide a quick reference for determining whether an act passed in the last 25 years is yet/still in force. Arranged by year and by title of the act within the year.
Halsbury's statutes: Acts that are still in force are published in the main volumes of Halsbury's and the Current Statute Service binders. A check in the cumulative supplement and the Noter-up binder will determine whether any of the acts or parts of the acts have been commenced, repealed, amended.
Current Law Statute Citator (KD296 C84): Acts that have been affected from 1947-date can be traced by using the volumes that comprise the Statute Citator and using the citator service in Current Law Statutes. Monthly Digests also include table of commencement dates for legislation during the current year.
6. Parliamentary debate
Locating Parliamentary Debate on a bill can be crucial to compiling a legislative history on an Act. Reports of debates are contained in Hansard (Official Report of Debates), a daily publication that is named after an early printer of the debates. Daily issues are cumulated into weekly issues and eventually bound sessional volumes are published. The last bound volume for each session contains a sessional index, in addition a fortnightly index to Hansard is published which indexes the daily and weekly issues. Hansard is currently in its sixth series (1981-) and it should be noted that citations are usually to column numbers not page numbers. When used in conjunction with the House of Commons Weekly Information Bulletin (this cumulates into the Sessional Information Digest) it is possible to trace the progress of a bill through the various stages and gather together the debate surrounding the bill. Debate from the committees are not included in the Hansard volumes for the two Houses - to locate this material use a separate set, Standing Committee Debates.
7. Internet resources
The Stationery Office has made available a large number of legislative research materials on the Internet. The address for the Stationery Office is http://www.tsonline.co.uk/ (which will soon be replaced by http://www.itsoffcial.net), however a more convenient site is the catch-all site for most of the popular official documents; http://www.official-documents.co.uk/.
With effect from the first Public General Act of 1996, all new Public General Acts (and the Data Protection Act 1984) have been and will be published in full text form on the Internet via the Her Majesty's Stationery Office Web Pages (http://www.hmso.gov.uk/acts.htm). All Public General Acts appear as originally passed by Parliament. Subsequent amendments are not included. Summaries of a wide range of earlier Acts comprising Long Title, Arrangement of Sections, ISBN, page content and price, are also available via these Web Pages.
The aim is that all new Public General Acts should be published on the Internet within 10 working days of their publication in printed form. Any Act which is especially complex typographically or in terms of its size may, however, take longer to prepare.
The United Kingdom Parliament page (http://www.parliament.uk/) contains links to the House of Commons and the House of Lords. Both of these sites are useful in that they include full text of Hansard, the Weekly Information Bulletin, Order Papers (essentially the calendar for the House), judgements of the House of Lords (judgements are available approximately 2 hours after they are handed down - effective November 1996), and public bills. In terms of up to date legislative research this page should be considered one-stop shopping. It should be noted however that full text of public laws are not available on the Parliament Web site, only the Stationery office web site has this information.
Revised: 02/00