A consolidation bill is a bill introduced into the

Parliament of the United Kingdom The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, and may also legislate for the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at the Palace ...

with the intention of consolidating several acts of Parliament or statutory instruments into a single act. Such bills simplify the

statute book The Statute Book is "the surviving body of enacted legislation published by authority" in "a number of publications". In England at the end of 1948, the Statute Book printed by authority consisted of the twenty-four volumes of ''The Statutes: Se ...

without significantly changing the state of the law, and are subject to an expedited

parliamentary procedure Parliamentary procedures are the accepted Procedural law, rules, ethics, and Norm (sociology), customs governing meetings of an deliberative assembly, assembly or organization. Their object is to allow orderly deliberation upon questions of inte ...

. Once enacted a consolidation bill becomes a consolidation act. The parliamentary practice of legislating only for small portions of a subject at a time can create undue complexity in

statute law A statute is a law or formal written enactment of a legislature. Statutes typically declare, command or prohibit something. Statutes are distinguished from court law and unwritten law (also known as common law) in that they are the expressed wil ...

. Acts relating to a particular subject often end up scattered over many years, and through the operation of clauses partially repealing or amending former acts, the specific meaning of the law regarding the subject becomes enveloped in intricate or contradictory expressions. For clarity, the law as expressed across many statutes is sometimes recast in a single statute, called a consolidation bill. By 1911, such bills had been passed dealing with subjects as diverse as

customs Customs is an authority or Government agency, agency in a country responsible for collecting tariffs and for controlling International trade, the flow of goods, including animals, transports, personal effects, and hazardous items, into and out ...

, stamps and stamp duties,

public health Public health is "the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life and promoting health through the organized efforts and informed choices of society, organizations, public and private, communities and individuals". Analyzing the de ...

weights and measures A unit of measurement, or unit of measure, is a definite magnitude (mathematics), magnitude of a quantity, defined and adopted by convention or by law, that is used as a standard for measurement of the same kind of quantity. Any other qua ...

sheriffs A sheriff is a government official, with varying duties, existing in some countries with historical ties to England where the office originated. There is an analogous, although independently developed, office in Iceland, the , which is commonly ...

coroner A coroner is a government or judicial official who is empowered to conduct or order an inquest into the manner or cause of death. The official may also investigate or confirm the identity of an unknown person who has been found dead within th ...

s, county courts, housing,

municipal corporation Municipal corporation is the legal term for a local governing body, including (but not necessarily limited to) cities, counties, towns, townships, charter townships, villages, and boroughs. The term can also be used to describe municipally o ...

libraries A library is a collection of Book, books, and possibly other Document, materials and Media (communication), media, that is accessible for use by its members and members of allied institutions. Libraries provide physical (hard copies) or electron ...

trustees Trustee (or the holding of a trusteeship) is a legal term which, in its broadest sense, refers to anyone in a position of trust and so can refer to any individual who holds property, authority, or a position of trust or responsibility for the ...

copyhold Copyhold was a form of customary land ownership common from the Late Middle Ages into modern times in England. The name for this type of land tenure is derived from the act of giving a copy of the relevant title deed that is recorded in the ...

, diseases of animals, merchant shipping, and friendly societies. These observations apply to the public general acts of the legislature. On the other hand, in settling local acts, such as those relating to

railway Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in railway track, tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel railway track, rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of ...

and

canal Canals or artificial waterways are waterways or engineered channels built for drainage management (e.g. flood control and irrigation) or for conveyancing water transport vehicles (e.g. water taxi). They carry free, calm surface ...

enterprise, the legislature always inserted certain clauses founded on reasons of public policy applicable to the business in question. To avoid the necessity of constantly re-enacting the same principles in local acts, their common clauses were embodied in separate statutes, and their provisions are ordered to be incorporated in any local act of the description mentioned therein. Such are the Lands Clauses Consolidation Act 1845 ( 8 & 9 Vict. c. 18),the Companies Clauses Act 1863 and the Railways Clauses Act 1863.

Procedure

Consolidation bills are introduced in the

House of Lords The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the lower house, the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster in London, England. One of the oldest ext ...

which, by convention, has primacy in these matters. The Lords has the only substantive discussion on the bill, at its

second reading A reading of a bill is a stage of debate on the bill held by a general body of a legislature. In the Westminster system, developed in the United Kingdom, there are generally three readings of a bill as it passes through the stages of becoming ...

, before the bill is sent to the

Joint Committee on Consolidation Bills The Joint Committee on Consolidation Bills (commonly known as Consolidation Bills Committee) is a joint committee of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The Committee was first established in 1894 with a remit to consider consolidation bills. ...

, which may propose amendments to it. Subject to this, the Lords' third reading and all readings in the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the Bicameralism, bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of ...

are usually formalities and pass without debate. Most consolidation bills are proposed in the first instance by a law reform body—either the

Law Commission A law commission, law reform commission, or law revision commission is an independent body set up by a government to conduct law reform; that is, to consider the state of laws in a jurisdiction and make recommendations or proposals for legal chang ...

(in England and Wales), the

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or the

Northern Ireland Law Commission The Northern Ireland Law Commission was a Law Commission in Northern Ireland created under section 50 of the Justice (Northern Ireland) Act 2002, implementing recommendations following the Good Friday Agreement. It replaced the non-statutory ...

—and it is this prior consideration that gives rise to the expedited process afforded to these bills. Every consolidation bill proposed by the Law Commission has been passed by Parliament. Once a consolidation bill receives

royal assent Royal assent is the method by which a monarch formally approves an act of the legislature, either directly or through an official acting on the monarch's behalf. In some jurisdictions, royal assent is equivalent to promulgation, while in othe ...

it becomes a consolidation act. An example of a consolidation act is the

Powers of Criminal Courts (Sentencing) Act 2000 The Powers of Criminal Courts (Sentencing) Act 2000 (c. 6) is a consolidation Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that brings together parts of several other Acts dealing with the sentencing treatment of offenders and defaulters. It ...

, which consolidated into a single act parts of

sentencing In criminal law, a sentence is the punishment for a crime ordered by a trial court after conviction in a criminal procedure, normally at the conclusion of a trial. A sentence may consist of imprisonment, a fine, or other sanctions. Sentences f ...

legislation previously spread across twelve separate acts. Another example of a consolidation act in relation to sentencing is the

Sentencing Act 2020 The Sentencing Act 2020 is a landmark Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The Act has 14 Parts and 29 Schedules. Parts 2 to 13 of the Act together make up a code called the “Sentencing Code”. The Sentencing Code is the law which conta ...

, which significantly replaced many acts in relation to sentencing including the

List of consolidation acts

The following are consolidation acts ('Tax Law Rewrite' acts are not included):"Tax Law Rewrite"
.

HMRC His Majesty's Revenue and Customs (commonly HM Revenue and Customs, or HMRC, and formerly Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs) is a Departments of the United Kingdom Government, department of the UK government responsible for the tax collectio ...

. ;1990s onwards ;1980s ;1970s ;1960s No consolidation acts were passed in 2008,The Public General Acts and General Synod Measures 2008. TSO. 2009. . Part V (tables and index). Page 3211. 2004,The Public General Acts and General Synod Measures 2004. TSO. . Part IV (tables and index). Table V. Page i. or 1999.The Public General Acts and General Synod Measures 1999. The Stationery Office Limited. 2000. . Part III (tables and indexes). Page ''h''.

References

External links

The Joint Committee on Consolidation BillsThe Law Commission for England and WalesThe United Kingdom Parliament
*{{EB1911, wstitle=Consolidation Acts, volume=6, page=979 Law of the United Kingdom Parliament of the United Kingdom Statutory law Consolidation Acts

Procedure

Categories

List of consolidation acts

See also

References

External links