How to trace legislation
Help from HSE
If you want to know which legislation relates to your industry,
there are a few ways to find this out:
- Some of our industry and
topic sites have a specific legislation section and we hope to introduce
this as a standard feature across all sites
- The lists of Acts and Statutory
Instruments can be sorted alphabetically by title and can be used
to identify relevant legislation
- The search engine
can also be used to trace legal information
If you are also interested in the general legislation
that applies to all working environments you may want to:
- visit the Getting
started site which provides basic information
- explore the Workers
site which explains the range of rights and responsiblities that affect
employees
- check out the Businesses
site which describes legal responsibilities of companies and the benefits
that good health and safety practices can bring.
hsedirect is a subscription-based service that
you can use to identify and access the full text of HSE guidance
publications and consolidated legislation.
Amendments to existing regulations are also subject to a consultation
process. You can find out about them from the sources above and from
the Current consultations
and discussions area.
If you have an enquiry that relates to a particular regulation
or is about a legal matter relevant to workplace health and safety, you
can use our Ask an Expert
service via HSE’S Infoline
External sources
There are many sources, both free and priced that will enable you to trace Acts and regulations. The following selection may prove useful:
- The Statute Law Database covers primary legislation in force at 1 st February 1991 and the primary and secondary legislation that has been produced since that date. The primary legislation has been revised to 2002 and it expected to be completely up do date with revisions by 2008. In the meantime, a Table of Effects for 2002 will help users to check the currency on any primary legislation selected.
- The House of
Commons Information Office produces two Factsheets that provide detailed
information on the UK legal system:
- European legislation can be traced on the EUR-Lex website. This site provides full-text access to European legislation,
case law and treaties. It also includes the full text of the Official
Journal of the European Communities and Tenders Electronic Daily.
- Scottish Law Online provides
an A-Z of Scottish law and has links to company and European law as well
as universities with legal collections and legal publishers.
- LexisNexis is a
priced subscription service giving access to a wide range of legal resources
from the legal publishing company Butterworths Tolley.
- Westlaw has a large collection
of legal material, provides legal commentary and also includes news and
business information. This is a priced service.
