Monitoring & Subscriptions

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Westminster - Legislation and Monitoring

Bills - TSO publish Bills when they are presented to Parliament and periodically thereafter, incorporating amendments agreed to date. Bills are considered by both Houses, so if you require a particular version it is important to specify which - otherwise, just ask for the latest version.

Acts of Parliament - Once both Houses have agreed the text of a Bill it receives Royal Assent and becomes an Act of Parliament. Acts may also be obtained in an annual, bound version, which has the advantage of including indexes and tables showing their impact on existing legislation.

Explanatory Notes - Explanatory Notes are available to make Bills and Acts easily understandable. They are particularly useful for those not legally qualified or without specialist knowledge of the subject matter, enabling the lay reader to grasp what the Bill or Act sets out to achieve. Explanatory Notes are not available for Appropriation, Consolidated Fund, Finance, Consolidation and most Private Members' Bills.

Statutory Instruments - Statutory Instruments (known as secondary legislation) allow Government ministers or other authorities to regulate administrative details within the bounds established by an Act. Such Instruments have equal force of law to the original Act itself. Special SIs called Commencement Orders are also used to bring sections of new Acts of Parliament into force.

Monitoring Hansard

The Official Report of Parliamentary Proceedings - The House of Commons and House of Lords Hansards provide a valuable insight into opinion on all topics of the day. They are a vital reference resource and the reports of speeches, debates, questions and answers make fascinating reading. There are three main editions for each House; daily, weekly and bound volumes. All subscriptions are on an annual basis.

The Daily Part - The Official Report of the House of Commons and the Official Report of the House of Lords provides a verbatim record of debates held in the House on a particular day, including written answers to Parliamentary questions and Division Lists.

Daily Hansard - House of Commons Parliamentary debates

 

Daily Hansard - House of Lords Parliamentary debates

 

Weekly Hansard - The weekly compilation for the Lords and the Commons is an economical alternative for those whose need is less immediate.

Weekly Hansard - House of Commons Parliamentary debates

 

Weekly Hansard - House of Lords Parliamentary debates

 

Bound Volumes - The Bound Volumes are an archive set and incorporate corrections from the daily part (no corrections are made in the weekly edition). A cumulative index to the whole session is published as the last bound volume of each session.

Indexes - Indexes to the Daily and Weekly Hansards are available which greatly assist in locating topics of interest and tracking debates - the Common's version is published fortnightly and the Lord's is published weekly.

Index to the House of Lords Parliamentary debates

 

Standing Committee Debate Reports - These are sold in daily parts (which may be composed of three or four parts if the committee debate has been very long). The committee debates on a Bill are issued together in what is called the Brown Cover and are subsequently published in bound volumes.

The Weekly Information Bulletin (WIB) - The Weekly Information Bulletin (WIB) is a convenient and cost effective way of keeping up with events in Parliament. WIB contains general information about Parliament, in particular summarising the previous week's business and the agenda for the forthcoming week.

WIB gives details of the progress of legislation through Parliament, the work of Select Committees and Green and White Papers published by the Government in the preceding week. Periodically it includes useful lists such as the membership of the Government and the shadow Cabinet. WIB is published weekly on Saturdays, whilst Parliament is in session.

House of Commons weekly Information bulletin