Legislation and official publications

 UK legislation

This covers UK Public General Acts (or statutes), UK Local Acts, Acts from Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales and Statutory Instruments. When searching it is important to know whether the resource you are searching provides an Act in its original or up to date amended format.

UK official publications

Official publications include Command Papers, House of Commons Papers and key Government Departmental papers.

House of Commons Papers

• These include a wide variety of documents and form a series which is numbered sequentially, starting from the beginning of a Parliamentary session

Command Papers

• These are presented to Parliament either as major policy proposals (White Papers) or consultation documents (Green Papers)

UK Government

• Access is provided to the debates of both Houses of Parliament, known as Commons Hansard and Lords Hansard, as well as publications from the assemblies of Northern Ireland and Wales.

EU and worldwide legislation

EU material is freely available, but the availability of worldwide legislation varies depending on the policy of individual countries.