Local and personal Acts of Parliament in the United Kingdom

Private acts are laws in the United Kingdom which apply to a particular individual or group of individuals, or corporate entity. This contrasts with a public general Act of Parliament which applies to the entire community. Private acts can afford relief from another law, grant a unique bene or powers not available under the general law, or relieve someone from legal responsibility for some allegedly wrongful act.

There are two types of private act: acts for the benefit of individuals (known as personal acts), and others acts of local or limited application (known as local acts). Private acts should not be confused with private member's bills—which in the Westminster system are bills for a public general Act of Parliament proposed by individual parliamentarians rather than the government.

About 11,000 private or personal acts have been passed since 1539, and 26,500 local acts have become law since 1797 (when local acts were separated from public general acts).

Personal acts developed as a means of allowing individuals to obtain from a specific wrong, or to obtain a benefit that was not otherwise available through statute or the common law. The granting of divorces, the naturalisation of (granting of citizenship to) foreigners, legal name changes, and changing the terms of a will, were often given effect through this means. In more recent years (since the introduction of general divorce and nationality laws, and the widespread adoption of the practice of using a deed poll to change name) the use of personal acts has greatly decreased. From 1980 they were only used to authorise six marriages between individuals who would not otherwise be able to marry due to being within the prohibited degrees of relationship, and no personal acts have been passed since 1987.

Until 1815, private and personal acts were not officially printed (made available to the public). Between 1815 and 1922, divorce acts continued not to be printed, whilst some other personal acts were.

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