Reading Guide
England-applicable Acts of Parliament — source: legislation.gov.uk, the official UK legislation database, reused under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
How to read a law on this site
Every Act is converted directly from legislation.gov.uk's own structured XML — no OCR, no AI reconciliation. What you see here mirrors the source exactly.
Not-yet-applied changes
Some Acts have amendments the publisher has recorded but not yet incorporated into the text. These appear as a banner at the top of the Act:
2 change(s) not yet applied to this Act. The source publisher (legislation.gov.uk) has recorded amendments that are not yet incorporated into the text below:
- section-14-1: words inserted (by Courts Act 2003)
Repealed and prospective provisions
Repealed text is kept, never deleted, and clearly marked:
(a) [REPEALED]
Provisions not yet in force are marked the same way:
(b) [NOT YET IN FORCE — prospective]
Amendments in the text
Words inserted, substituted, or repealed by a later Act are shown in brackets with a footnote citing the amending instrument:
he causes a computer to perform any function [, or to enable any such access to be secured]1
Quoted text from another Act
Text an Act quotes from elsewhere (a BlockAmendment) is shown as a quote block, kept out of this document's own numbering:
[Quoted block text — not this Act's own numbered provision]
the quoted words themselves
Territorial extent
Where a provision applies to a narrower part of the UK than the Act as a whole, that is noted directly above it:
[Extent — section 3] E+W
Defined terms and editorial notes
Each Act ends with an alphabetical index of its defined terms, and — where the publisher recorded a note that isn't tied to a specific amendment — an Editorial Notes section.
Attribution
Every page carries the Open Government Licence v3.0 attribution required for reuse of legislation.gov.uk content, at the foot of the Act.
Footnotes
Contains public sector information from legislation.gov.uk, licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.