Halsbury's Statutes

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Halsbury’s Statutes of England and Wales (commonly referred to as Halsbury's Statutes) provides an up-to-date version of the amended text of every Public General Act of Parliament or Church of England Measure currently in force in England and Wales (and to various extents in Scotland and Northern Ireland), as well as a number of private and local Acts, with detailed annotations to each section and Schedule. It incorporates the effects of new Acts of Parliament and secondary legislation into existing legislation to provide an "as amended" version for easy reference.

Halsbury’s Statutes was created in 1929. The full title of this major work was The Complete Statutes of England Classified and Annotated in Continuation of Halsbury’s Laws of England and for ready reference entitled Halsbury’s Statutes of England. The new work was to be a companion to Halsbury’s Laws and therefore bears the name of Lord Halsbury.

The first edition, in twenty volumes, appeared between 1929 and 1931. The new encyclopedia was based on the design of the earlier Butterworths’ Twentieth Century Statutes (Annotated), a work in five volumes covering the Acts of 1900 to 1909, which had been kept up to date by annual supplemental volumes. Like its companion, Halsbury's Laws, it was arranged by subject matter. This new work, however, expanded on the previous statutory work in that it included all primary legislation in force at the time of publication.

The current edition (the fourth), in fifty volumes, was published between 1985 and 1992, and is supplemented by an annual hardbound supplement and periodic loose-leaf updates. Individual volumes are reissued when there has been a significant impact on the subject matter concerned through changes in legislation. A number of additional softbound annual publications have also been developed which provide the current status of statutes (ie lists of all amendments, repeals etc), as well as commencement details and indices to the volumes.

The complete set consists of the main volumes as well as the indices and updating materials, and loose-leaf updating materials. Halsbury's Statutes is also available as a searchable electronic archive on a paid subscription basis.