News story

Join the good law conversation

The government has launched the ‘good law’ initiative to make legislation more accessible and understandable for UK citizens.

• From: Office of the Parliamentary Counsel, Cabinet Office and The Rt Hon Andrew Lansley CBE
• Published: 16 April 2013
• Last updated: 16 April 2013 — See all updates

This was published under the 2010 to 2015 Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition government

The initiative was launched at the Institute for Government on Tuesday 16 April at 17.00. You can replay live coverage of the event on the good law blog and keep up-to-date with all the latest good law news at #goodlaw on Twitter.

The launch:

• introduced the good law approach and an Office of the Parliamentary Counsel (OPC) report on causes of complexity in legislation
• started a dialogue around good law and how to improve UK legislation

Bringing together law makers, legal experts and users

People find legislation difficult. The volume of statutes and regulations, their piecemeal structure, and their level of detail and frequent amendments, make legislation hard to understand and difficult to comply with.

The government would like the user to experience good law: law that is necessary, clear, coherent, effective and accessible.

The initiative is asking a range of partners – in government, in Parliament and beyond – to get involved. For some this may mean challenging their current approach to preparing, making, scrutinising, or publishing legislation. It may mean working more closely together with partners, or knowing better how the user finds legislation, or what they do with it.

The government hopes that the initiative will build a shared pride in the quality of our law, and will create confidence among citizens that legislation is for them.

Using the benefits of new technology

This is an exciting time for thinking about how legislation can be made easier for users. The digital age enables us to explore the potential of tools for publishing and arranging law, and techniques for diagnosing and predicting how law is used.

It builds on other government projects to improve the users’ experience of legislation, including the launch of legislation.gov.uk and the Red Tape Challenge.

You can download the OPC Good Law Report and read more with GOV.UK’s detailed good law guide.

Published 16 April 2013
Last updated 16 April 2013 + show all updates

1. 16 April 2013

   Changed link to live blog

2. 16 April 2013

   First published.