Local and personal acts of Parliament (United Kingdom)

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Local and personal 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 (statute) which applies to the nation-state. Acts of Parliament can afford relief from another law; grant a unique benefit or, grant powers not available under the general law; or, relieve someone from legal responsibility for some allegedly wrongful act.

Acts for the benefit of individuals were before 1948 known as private acts, and are now called personal acts.

Acts of local or limited application are known as local acts or public local acts. This distinction from the more normal public general acts was introduced in 1797, before that time there were simply 'public acts'.

The bills for both personal and local acts are known as private bills. These 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).^[1]