Transcript

INSTRUCTOR

The Farriers (Registration) Act 2017 is an Act of the UK Parliament. You will see that the name of the Act is given immediately under the royal coat of arms. Underneath, the name ‘2017 Chapter 28’ means that this was the 28th Act to be passed in 2017.

Next follows a short statement about the purpose of the Act. There’s then a short statement confirming that the Act has been passed by both Houses of Parliament and received the royal assent. After this comes the main body of the Act. This is set out in sections. Each Act of Parliament will vary in the number of sections and parts it has.

The Farriers (Registration) Act 2017 is a short Act and has only three sections. Each section is equally important. Section one is not any more or less important than sections two and three or the schedules.

Section one states that changes are being made to the Farriers Registration Council and its committees, and that the Farriers (Registration) Act 1975, the 1975 Act, is being amended.

Section two makes a number of amendments to the Farriers Registration Act 1975.

Section three is concerned with the commencement, extent and citation of the Act. When looking at UK Parliament Acts, extent sections are important. This is where you find the information about the geographical extent of the Act, in particular, whether or not that Act applies in Scotland. Here you can see that the Act applies in England, Wales and Scotland.

Schedules allow for more detailed provisions to be included. You should not think of schedules as being an inferior source of law. Schedules form an important part of Acts of Parliament and are law in the same way that sections of the Act are law.

You may have noticed that throughout the Act there is a lot of punctuation and use of ‘and.’ You should assume all words and punctuation in the statute have meaning. It’s tempting to skip words you don’t understand and ignore awkward punctuation, but it’s all there for a reason.

You may find some of the terminology difficult to understand. There may be reference to other Acts of Parliament. Some Latin terms may be used, and there may be other terms you may not understand. It’s quite common for Acts of Parliament to contain language like this. You’ll be able to find the meaning of any words or terms about which you are unsure in a dictionary.

It’s important to interpret an Act so that it makes sense and it’s common for lawyers and law students when reading an Act to have to do so a number of times before they gain a full understanding. As you become more accustomed to reading Acts of Parliament, you’ll become more familiar with the language used, and you’ll begin to find it much easier to understand what the Acts are saying.