UK Legislation

UK Legislation API (legislation.gov.uk)

Access UK primary and secondary legislation. No authentication required.

Data Model

• Legislation types: ukpga (UK Public General Act), uksi (UK Statutory Instrument), asp (Act of Scottish Parliament), asc (Act of Senedd Cymru), nisi (Northern Ireland Order in Council), ukla (UK Local Act), ukppa (UK Personal/Private Act).
• Identification: Each piece of legislation is identified by type, year, and number (e.g. ukpga/2010/15 = Equality Act 2010).
• Sections: Individual provisions within an Act, identified by number (e.g. section 1, section 149).
• Versions: Legislation can be viewed as enacted or as revised (with amendments applied). The default is the latest revised version.

Gotchas

• XML-first API: The API returns XML (Atom feeds for search, Legislation XML for content). There is no JSON endpoint for individual legislation.
• Search via Atom feed: Use /search/data.feed?title=...&type=...&results-count=N for structured results.
• XHTML for readable text: Use /data.xht suffix for HTML-formatted legislation text (easier to parse than raw XML).
• Large Acts: Some Acts (e.g. Companies Act 2006) are very large. Request specific sections rather than the whole Act.
• Rate limiting: Be respectful of the public API. No formal rate limit is published but excessive requests may be throttled.
• Section numbering: Sections may include subsections like 1A, 78A. Use the exact section identifier.