As well as Acts of Parliament, United Kingdom law is also made through Statutory Instruments (SIs) (also referred to as delegated, or secondary legislation). These are laws which are usually written by a Government minister, exercising legislative powers delegated to him or her by Act of Parliament. Some of these must be approved by Parliament before they can become law (affirmative procedure), others need only be laid before Parliament with a power for Parliament to annul them if it is sufficiently exercised. The section of the Act of Parliament that grants the power will usually state whether the power is to be exercised by statutory instrument and what parliamentary procedure is to apply. Generally, if it is a potentially contentious power the affirmative route will be required, and if not, the negative route.

Statutory Instruments are not necessarily the same thing as an Order in Council: Statutory Instruments are 'delegated legislation' (the power is delegated by Parliament), whereas Orders in Council either operate through the Royal Prerogative or are made under powers created in statute. The latter will generally be made by statutory instrument, the former not.

They are used because they are much faster and simpler to implement than a full Act of Parliament. SIs are sometimes described as "secondary legislation, not second class legislation". They have the same force as an Act of Parliament, and much of the U.K.'s law is made in this way. There are literally thousands of SIs each year, compared with a few dozen Acts.

Probably one of the biggest uses of Statutory Instruments is incorporating into UK law provisions of Directives of the EU, which are brought in under the provisions of the Single European Act.

They are also used to bring Acts of Parliament into force: it is not uncommon for quite major pieces of legislation to be passed by Parliament with all the sections 'turned off', and a power for the Minister to 'turn them on' (or 'bring into force' as it is properly called) at a later date by means of a Commencement Order. Some sections are never brought into force at all.

The advent of devolution in 1999 resulted in many powers to make statutory instruments being transferred to the Scottish Executive and Welsh Assembly Government and oversight to the Scottish Parliament and National Assembly for Wales. Instruments made by the Scottish Executive are now classed separately as Scottish Statutory Instruments.

Canada also uses the Statutory Instrument nomenclature. An example being the Proclamation of the Queen of Canada on April 17, 1982 bringing into force the Constitution Act, 1982 also known as the Canada Act 1982 (U.K.).

External links

• All United Kingdom Acts of Parliament from 1988 onwards and Statutory Instruments from 1987 onwards are available free on-line under Crown copyright terms from Her Majesty's Stationery Office (HMSO) at http://www.hmso.gov.uk/
• Acts of the Scottish Parliament and Scottish Statutory Instruments are available free on-line under Crown copyright terms from HMSO at http://www.scotland-legislation.hmso.gov.uk
• List of Canadian Statutory Instruments