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Interpretation and Legislative Reform (Scotland) Act 2010

Act of the Scottish Parliament

Layered newspapers, civic records and oral-history reels arranged as chronological evidence
History and societyInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJul 12, 2026
Entity authorityQ100249315 ↗
Source-derived summary

The Interpretation and Legislative Reform (Scotland) Act 2010 (asp 10) is an act of the Scottish Parliament that was given royal assent on 29 April 2015; it came into force in April 2016.

History

In January 2009, the Scottish Parliament established a consultation into the interpretation of legislation. The consultation referred to the Renton Report, a 1975 report of which specifically called for an updated "Interpretation Act" to simplify legislative language and for a Statute Law Committee to be established.

Detail

The Lord Advocate, James Wolffe, gave the 2020 Renton Lecture and described the amount of freedom of the Scottish Parliament to choose how it will legislate describing, while not directly referring to the act, refers to many of the provisions of the act. The Interpretation Act 1978 still applies in a limited way to acts of the Scottish Parliament.

Primary legislation

The act places regulations how acts of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, acts of the Parliament of Scotland and acts of the Scottish Parliament can be referred to in other legislation. The act designates acts of the Parliament of Scotland as "Old Scots Acts". The act also regulates how acts of the Scottish Parliament can be interpreted, enacted, amended and repealed.

Secondary legislation

The act regulates how Scottish statutory instruments can be interpreted, enacted, amended and revoked. There are three types of procedure for reviewing secondary legislation:

The "affirmative procedure" requires formal approval of the draft instrument in plenary – this means the Scottish Parliament has to hold a vote before it can be approved.

Editorial summary

“Interpretation and Legislative Reform (Scotland) Act 2010” enters the record as act of the Scottish Parliament. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Interpretation, Legislative and Reform can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewMost valuable as an event-and-institution map that identifies actors, dates and record creators for deeper historical inquiry. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2010, 2015, 2016, 2009—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Interpretation, Legislative and Reform.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Interpretation and Legislative Reform (Scotland) Act 2010” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Interpretation, Legislative and Reform provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 12, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q100249315. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2010, 2015, 2016 and 2009.

Critical limits

Official terminology may obscure informal participation, dissent or communities documented only indirectly. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.

Best used for
  • Event chronology
  • Institutional context
  • Locating named record creators
Verify next

Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Interpretation and Legislative Reform (Scotland) Act 2010”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Interpretation and Legislative Reform (Scotland) Act 2010 primary sources, Interpretation and Legislative Reform (Scotland) Act 2010 archive and Interpretation research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Interpretation and Legislative Reform (Scotland) Act 2010”?
  2. Who created the surviving record, and for what administrative purpose?
  3. What chronology connects this entry to wider political or social change?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Interpretation and Legislative Reform (Scotland) Act 2010” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.