Lifecycle of Parliamentary Documents: United Kingdom
Publishing legislation is the responsibility of the Keeper of Public Records and the Queen’s Printer for Scotland, and official copies of all UK legislation are lodged with the Parliamentary Archives.[1] The legislative information service is managed on the governments’ behalf by the National Archives,[2] which publishes legislation both in hard copy and online on the platform legislation.gov.uk. In addition to providing a copy of legislation as originally enacted, the National Archives provides a revised version of most primary legislation, and some secondary legislation, on its platform.[3] The revised version incorporates amendments and annotations about the effects on other legislation and the amending legislation.[4]
In addition to managing the legislative information service on behalf of the government, the National Archives also acts to preserve certain government publications. While it typically does not collect and preserve parliamentary papers unless they form part of other unique papers or have been significantly annotated and form part of a policy process,[5] it does collect certain government publications that are not formally published, and thus not subject to the legal deposit requirements, or documents that are not otherwise preserved. These types of publications are frequently referred to as “grey literature.”[6] The National Archives has published extensive guidance on what type of grey literature should be preserved, with a focus on whether the documents are preserved elsewhere and the archival value of these works. For example, it provides that bulletins and newsletters from government departments should be selected for preservation at the National Archives if they “communicate information on policy or legislation or significant issues may be of archival value providing this information is not covered by records already at The National Archives or records likely to be transferred in the future.”[7] It notes that internal circulars “are unlikely to be of archival value and should not be selected for permanent preservation.”[8]
III. Special Procedures for Handling Particular Types of Parliamentary Documents
A record of the proceedings in Parliament that occur in Westminster Hall and in General Committee[9] is contained in a series known as the Official Report, commonly called Hansard. The
- ↑ About Us, Legislation.gov.uk, supra note 78.
- ↑ Frequently Asked Questions, Legislation.gov.uk, https://perma.cc/NV3V-KSUS.
- ↑ The National Archives, A Guide to Revised Legislation on Legislation.gov.uk (Oct. 2013), https://perma.cc/4QG5-QJND.
- ↑ Understanding Legislation, Legislation.gov.uk, https://perma.cc/KM4K-4L5Q.
- ↑ National Archives, Records Management Retention Scheduling (2012) ¶ 1.4, https://perma.cc/6LCN-L28T. See also The National Archives, Records Collection Policy ¶ 3.4 (last reviewed Oct. 2019), https://perma.cc/R5DFWJH8.
- ↑ National Archives, Operation Selection Policy 36: Publications/Grey Literature, supra note 64, ¶ 2.1.
- ↑ Id. ¶ 6.6.3.
- ↑ Id. ¶ 6.7.1.
- ↑ House of Commons Information Office, The Official Report (Factsheet G17, 2010), https://perma.cc/F869XXGL.
The Law Library of Congress
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