UK Statutory Instruments – Introduction

The UK Statutory Instruments database on the Justis website contains:

full text of Statutory Instruments (SIs) from January 1987 to date, with the full text, tables, diagrams and maps;
full text of modern-style Statutory Instruments (SIs) issued from 1949 to 1986 that are included in the HMSO bound annual volumes;
full text of legislation included in Statutory Rules & Orders and Statutory Instruments Revised to December 31 1948, published by HMSO in 1950.

The SIs are formatted to resemble the original printed documents, with page breaks in the correct places.

The database is updated 2–3 times per week, with SIs normally available within two days of publication.

The database includes:

SIs for England and Wales;
Draft SIs for England and Wales;
SIs for Scotland (including those from the Scottish Parliament);
Northern Ireland Orders (the equivalent of statutes).

The database does not include:

local SIs that are not published by the Stationery Office;
Statutory Rules of Northern Ireland (the equivalent of SIs);
pre-1987 documents that are not included in the HMSO bound annual volumes.

Statutory Instruments

Acts of Parliament (primary legislation, included in the UK Statutes database) do not always provide for the regulation of every detail of the subject or subjects with which they deal. Instead they confer powers on government ministers to make Statutory Instruments (secondary legislation, also known as delegated legislation and subordinate legislation) to regulate the details, although they still have to be approved by Parliament. For example, it would not be practicable for Parliament to decide upon the enactment of every regulation of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1967, so the Act empowers the Secretary of State for Transport to administer the Act in its many hundred individual applications through Statutory Instruments. Some SIs are made by the Queen in Council, not by ministers.

The term “Statutory Instrument” was brought into use by the Statutory Instruments Act 1946, and covers most subordinate legislation made by the central Government since the commencement of that Act on 1 January 1948. The term is sometimes used to include earlier instruments more correctly called Statutory Rules and Orders. There may be as many as 2000 SIs each year.

Each SI is given a number in the SI series, numbered from 1 each calendar year, e.g. SI 1987/16. This document, Statutory Instrument No. 16 in 1987, sets out in considerable detail the manner in which the Ministry of Transport exercises its powers under Sections 64 and 65(i) of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1954, concerning the siting, layout and construction of Pelican Crossings.

Linking from other databases

If you see a reference to an SI in a record in any of the other Justis databases and you would like to see the full text of the SI:

select the reference (e.g. SI 1995/539) by dragging slowly over it with your mouse;
click “J-Link” in the Document Actions panel.

Places where SIs are referred to include the UK Implementations field, the Implementing SIs field and the Related SIs field in the CELEX database.

To link to the full text of an SI if the reference is not in the proper format, go to the Reference field on the Search In Legislation screen, type the reference in the correct format (e.g. SI 1997/990 or SI 1997 No 990) in the text box, and click the “Search” button.

Crown copyright material has been reproduced under licence from the Controller of Her Majesty’s Stationery Office.

More information about the UK Statutory Instruments database