We have already looked at how to reference legislation from England, as well as from Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. However, what do you do if you need to reference a Bill which has either not been passed yet or has been rejected? This week’s blog looks at the correct way to do this using OSCOLA, for Bills of both the UK Parliament and the Scottish Parliament.
Bills are proposals for legislation that need to be discussed by Parliament before they can become law.
UK Parliament
First, we will be looking at Bills from the UK Parliament. It is important to remember that Bills can start in either the House of Commons or the House of Lords and, as such, use a different type of running number to identify them.
The basic format for a House of Commons Bill from UK Parliament is:
Title | HC Bill | (Session) | [Running number]
An example of a House of Commons Bill is:
Consolidated Fund HC Bill (2008–09) [5].
Alternatively, the basic format for a UK Bill originating in the House of Lords is:
Title | HL Bill | (Session) | Running number
Similarly, an example of a House of Lords Bill is:
Academies HL Bill (2010-11) 1.
Don’t forget that you will need a full stop if the citation is in a footnote, but not if it is in a bibliography.
We will now look at each element of the citation in turn.
Title
This should be the official title of the Bill, to ensure that readers know what you are referring to and can find it easily, as consideration for the reader is one of the golden rules for OSCOLA referencing.
HC Bill/HL Bill
This is simply the part that shows which House the Bill originated in. If it originated in the House of Commons, you would write HC Bill; if it originated in the House of Lords, put HL Bill. Note that regardless of the House in which it started, a Bill will have to go through both Houses before it can become law.
Session
This is the Parliamentary session in which the Bill was heard and will be the year range that made up that particular session. In the example above, we can see that the session is given as (2008–09), meaning that this Bill was heard somewhere in the 2008–09 Parliament. If you would like to know how to cite a range of numbers, there is more information in my blog OSCOLA Referencing Introduction and Quick Summary.
Occasionally, there have been times when there was more than one session in a single year. If this happens, the sessions will be cited as, for example, “1841, sess 1” and “1841, sess 2” to distinguish between them.
Running number
Each Bill heard is assigned a running number. Bills that started in the House of Commons will be given a running number which will be placed in square brackets, whereas Bills that originated in the House of Lords will also be given a running number, but this number is not placed in brackets for the citation.
In addition, if a Bill is reprinted at any stage it will normally be given a new running number so that it can be easily identified. A Bill may be reprinted if it is amended in any way on its journey through Parliament; for example, by modifying a particular detail.
However, if a Public Bill in the House of Lords is amended, it may still have the same running number, with the addition of lower case letters or Roman numerals to distinguish it. Obviously, it is important to include these suffixes in your citations, as readers may otherwise be referred to an outdated version of the Bill you are discussing.
Scottish Parliament
Scottish Bills also have a particular type of citation, which will now examine. The basic format for a Bill is:
SP Bill | Number | Title | [Printing] | Session | (Year)
An example of a Bill from Scottish Parliament is:
SP Bill 4 Abolition of Feudal Tenure etc (Scotland) Bill [as introduced] Session 1 (1999).
Looking at each part in turn:
SP Bill
This is similar to the HC Bill/HL Bill above and simply indicates that the Bill is from the Scottish Parliament.
Number
This is like the running number for Bills from UK Parliament and is used to identify the Bills, with each one being given a different number. However, the Scottish Parliament Bills keep their original number even after amendments have been made, simply taking on a capital letter to distinguish the different versions. For example, an amendment made to the Bill cited above is:
SP Bill 4A Abolition of Feudal Tenure etc (Scotland) Bill [as amended at Stage 2] Session 1 (2000).
As you can see, the Bill has changed number from “4” to “4A”.
Title
Again, this is just the title the Bill is given.
Printing
The printing gives details on which version of the Bill is being cited. Looking again at our examples:
SP Bill 4 Abolition of Feudal Tenure etc (Scotland) Bill [as introduced] Session 1 (1999).
SP Bill 4A Abolition of Feudal Tenure etc (Scotland) Bill [as amended at Stage 2] Session 1 (2000).
You can see that Bill 4 has its printing details as “as introduced”, showing that this is the original Bill printed, whereas Bill 4A’s printing details are “as amended at Stage 2”, indicating that amendments have now been made. Remember to place printing details inside square brackets.
Session
As for Bills from the UK Parliament, this refers to the session in which the Bill was heard, but sessions of Scottish Parliament are the period from one election to another, a period of 4 years.
Year
This is the year in which the Bill was heard, which should be written in round brackets.
Pinpoints
If you need to pinpoint a particular part of a Bill, it is much the same as for UK legislation, which you can read about in my blog here. “Clause” and “clauses” should be abbreviated to “cl” and “cls” respectively in a citation in a footnote. You can also use these abbreviations in the body of your writing if you wish.
The pinpoint should go at the end of the citation, after a comma. For example:
Academies HL Bill (2010-11) 1, cl 8(2).
Remember that you do not need to put any references to parts of Bills such as these in the bibliography, as this should just include the basic citation, without the pinpoints.
Wrapping Up
I hope that this helps you to cite Bills from the UK and Scottish Parliaments. Thank you for reading and please leave any questions you have in the comments below.
Photo above by Helloquence on Unsplash.
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