Please see below a list of the more common online sources of UK Legislation. It is important to know if you are looking for amended or unamended legislation.There are a number of subscription databases that have amended legislation and they also include other information (such as annotations) which may be useful.
General Public Acts and Measures
Classmark: Cw UK 10
This is the official printed copy of statutes produced by the Stationary Office. These are arranged by year and are not amended.
Halsbury's Statutes :
Classmark: Cw UK 30H196a
Multi - volume work arranged by broad subject area. Has statutes as amended and annotated with a looseleaf updating service.
Current Law Statutes annotated
Classmark: CW UK 020 C976
From 1947 onwards. Arranged by year. Contains statutes as originally enacted with annotations.
Halsbury's Statutory Instruments:
Classmark: Cw UK 090 S797.4b
Arranged by broad subject these have summaries of statutory intruments with some major instruments being reprinted in full.
RSS Feed from Legislation.Gov
Primary legislation (Statutes or Acts) are passed by
Parliament. These pieces of legislation
(called Bills) are discussed in both Houses and amendments added and approved
by both Houses before the Bill received “Royal Ascent” and becomes an Act. See separate tab on Parliament for more detailed information.
Secondary or delegated legislation (statutory instruments) is also produced, usually by specific government departments, but these do not usually need to go through the process of parliament. When looking for Legislation it is important to distinguish between unamended legislation and amended legislation. If you are looking for the current law you must always make sure that you look in a source that includes amendments.
Legislation is covered by many of the legal databases - see the box on the left for further details of which database contain amended and unamended legislation.
Legislation in the Bodleian Law Library starts at CwUk 10 on the main floor. There are a number of hard copy series that contain legislation, the official series is held and is unamended. See the box Printed sources of UK legislation on the left for more details.
Below is a short presentation outlining the different parts of an act. If you want information about how to find an act see the Introduction to UK Legislation presentation which has further information.
Below is a 9 minute presentation. You may find it easier to view in You Tube.
