Consolidation bill

A consolidation bill is a bill introduced into the Parliament of the United Kingdom with the intention of consolidating several Acts of Parliament or Statutory Instruments into a single Act. Such bills simplify the statute book without significantly changing the state of the law, and are subject to an expedited Parliamentary procedure.
The parliamentary practice of legislating only for small portions of a subject at a time can create undue complexity in statute law. Acts relating to a particular subject often end up scattered over many years, and through the operation of clauses partially repealing or amending former acts, the specific meaning of the law regarding the subject becomes enveloped in intricate or contradictory expressions. For clarity, the law as expressed across many statutes is sometimes recast in a single statute, called a consolidation bill.
By 1911, such bills had been passed dealing with subjects as diverse as customs, stamps and stamp duties, public health, weights and measures, sheriffs, coroners, county courts, housing, municipal corporations, libraries, trustees, copyhold, diseases of animals, merchant shipping, and friendly societies.
These observations apply to the Public General Acts of the legislature. On the other hand, in settling private Acts, such as those relating to railway and canal enterprise, the legislature always inserted certain clauses founded on reasons of public policy applicable to the business in question. To avoid the necessity of constantly re-enacting the same principles in private Acts, their common clauses were embodied in separate statutes, and their provisions are ordered to be incorporated in any private Act of the description mentioned therein. Such are the Lands Clauses Acts, the Companies Clauses Acts and the Railways Clauses Acts.

Procedure

Consolidation bills are introduced in the House of Lords which, by convention, has in these matters. The Lords has the only substantive discussion on the bill, at its second reading, before the bill is sent to a Joint Committee of Parliament which may propose amendments to it. Subject to this, the Lords' third reading and all readings in the House of Commons are usually formalities and pass without debate.
Most consolidation bills are proposed in the first instance by the Law Commission, and it is this prior consideration that gives rise to the expedited process afforded to these bills. Every consolidation bill proposed by the Law Commission has been passed by Parliament.
Once a consolidation bill receives royal assent it becomes a consolidation Act. An example of a consolidation Act is the Powers of Criminal Courts Act 2000, which consolidated into a single Act parts of sentencing legislation previously spread across twelve separate Acts.

Categories of consolidation bills

There are five categories of bill that qualify as consolidation bills:

Bills which only re-enact existing law.
Bills which consolidate previous laws with amendments, proposed in response to recommendations from the Law Commission.
Bills to repeal existing legislation, again prepared by the Law Commission.
Bills to repeal various obsolete or unnecessary parts of existing legislation.
Bills which make corrections and minor improvements to existing legislation, prepared under the Consolidation of Enactments Act 1949.

The first three categories now account for almost all consolidation bills.

List of Consolidation Acts

No consolidation Acts were passed in 2008.
The following are consolidation Acts:

No consolidation Acts were passed in 2004.
The European Parliamentary Elections Act 2002 is a consolidation Act.
The Powers of Criminal Courts Act 2000 is a consolidation Act.
No consolidation Acts were passed in 1999.
The Petroleum Act 1998 and the Audit Commission Act 1998 are consolidation Acts.
The following are consolidation Acts:

The Town and Country Planning Act 1997
The Planning Act 1997
The Planning Act 1997
The Planning Act 1997
The Architects Act 1997
The Lieutenancies Act 1997
The Nurses, Midwives and Health Visitors Act 1997
The Justices of the Peace Act 1997