Erskine May available online for the first time

Erskine May online

You can access the online version on the Parliament website via the link below:

• Erskine May online version

The Speaker of the House of Commons John Bercow MP commented:

“Parliamentary practice and procedure does not exist in a vacuum. It is in fact the lifeblood of the day to day work of Members, as recent months have starkly brought in to focus."

"All too often parliamentary rules are seen as a Byzantine mystery, only understood by a select few. Therefore I am delighted that Erskine May, the venerable Bible of parliamentary procedures, is to be made freely available to all, to help people develop a wider understanding of how their elected representatives work."

 
The Clerk of the House of Commons, Dr John Benger added:

"Erskine May is the most authoritative and influential work on parliamentary procedure and constitutional conventions affecting Parliament." 
 
"Its reach stretches beyond the confines of the Parliamentary Estate and attracts wide public interest as a source of information and is also influential in many other countries.

"The digital version will maintain the iconic status of Erskine May whilst opening up parliamentary practice to a wider audience, something that is all the more important at this time of such great constitutional and procedural turbulence.
 
"I would like to pay tribute to all staff of the House, past and present, as well as all those at LexisNexis who have worked so hard to make this possible."

What is Erskine May?

Rather than being a set of rules, Erskine May is a description of how procedure in the House of Commons and House of Lords has evolved and the conventions that apply. The first edition was published in the mid-nineteenth century and new editions are published approximately every six or seven years.

Its full title is 'A treatise on the law, privileges, proceedings and usage of Parliament', but it is referred to as Erskine May after its original author Sir Thomas Erskine May, who was a Clerk of the House of Commons between 1871 and 1886.

The latest edition includes details of the many changes that have occurred since the 24th edition was published in 2011, including:

• Introduction and application of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011
• English votes for English laws (EVEL)
• Creation of Petitions Committee and the e-petitions system
• New and innovative ways of working by Select Committees
• The impact of the EU referendum, and the transposition of EU law into UK law
• Reforms to the financial timetable and scrutiny, including changes to Estimates Day procedures
• Recall of MPs Act

Image: Parliamentary Copyright