UK Legislation

UK Legislation (legislation.gov.uk)

The official UK legislation database, maintained by The National Archives. No auth required.

Key Concepts

• Legislation types: ukpga (UK Public General Acts), uksi (UK Statutory Instruments), asp (Acts of Scottish Parliament), asc (Acts of Senedd Cymru), nia (Acts of NI Assembly). Combine with + for multi-type searches (e.g. ukpga+uksi).
• Versions: Each piece of legislation has an as enacted version and a revised (current) version incorporating all amendments. Point-in-time versions show the law as it stood on a specific date.
• Effects: Amendments, repeals, substitutions and other changes that one piece of legislation makes to another. Effects track whether they've been applied to the revised text.
• Sections: Legislation is divided into Parts, Chapters, and Sections. Use type/year/number to identify an Act (e.g. ukpga/1996/18 = Employment Rights Act 1996).

Common Use Cases

• Search by title keywords to find relevant legislation
• Retrieve the full text of a specific Act or Statutory Instrument
• Get a specific section (e.g. s.94 of Employment Rights Act 1996 on unfair dismissal)
• Track what amendments have been made to a piece of legislation

Gotchas

• Search returns Atom feed XML — the tools parse this into structured JSON for you.
• Legislation content is returned as HTML — large Acts may produce very long responses. Use the section-level tool for targeted retrieval.
• The API rate limit is 3,000 requests per 5 minutes per IP.
• Not all legislation has revised versions — older Acts may only be available as enacted.