You are not a law student. You are writing a nursing dissertation that has to cite the Mental Capacity Act 2005, or an education dissertation that turns on the Children Act 1989, or a business dissertation about the Equality Act 2010 — and your Harvard guide’s four standard patterns for books, chapters, articles and webpages do not cover any of it.
This guide gives you the Harvard patterns for the six legal sources a non-law undergraduate actually meets, each with a published template and a worked example, plus the one situation in which Harvard is the wrong style entirely. Law students should stop here and use OSCOLA instead.
The rule that saves you the most trouble
Legislation has no author and no publication date in the ordinary sense. The title of the Act, including its year, occupies the author position, and the year in the title is the year you cite. This one fact resolves most of the confusion, because students instinctively try to make Parliament, the government or the website into the author.
The corollary: the citation in your text is the Act’s full short title, not a surname and date. You write (Modern Slavery Act 2015), not (Parliament, 2015) and not (legislation.gov.uk, 2015).
The six patterns, with published templates
The templates below are those published by the University of Leeds Library for Leeds Harvard, one of the named UK Harvard variants. Use them as the shape; check your own library guide for local differences, because this is exactly the kind of detail variants change.
1. Act of Parliament
Template: Title of the Act and year. (chapter number of the Act; abbreviated to ‘c.’). Place of publication: Publisher.
Example: Modern Slavery Act 2015. (c.30). London: The Stationery Office.
Online: Title of the Act and year. (c. number). [Online]. Place of publication: Publisher. [Date accessed]. Available from: URL
Example: Higher Education and Research Act 2017. (c.29). [Online]. London: The Stationery Office. [Accessed 14 May 2018]. Available from: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/
The chapter number is not optional and it is not guessable. It is printed on the Act’s page on legislation.gov.uk as “2015 c. 30”. For the Acts non-law students cite most often: Children Act 1989 is c.41, Mental Capacity Act 2005 is c.9, Equality Act 2010 is c.15 and Data Protection Act 2018 is c.12 — each confirmed on that Act’s own legislation.gov.uk entry.
Acts passed before 1963 need more. Leeds gives the pattern as the regnal year, the monarch and the chapter: Homicide Act 1957. (5&6 Eliz.2, c.11). London: HMSO. The publisher changes too — The Stationery Office was HMSO before 1963.
2. Statutory instrument
Template: Title of the statutory instrument and year. SI year/number. Place of publication: Publisher.
Example: The Bathing Water Regulations 2013. SI 2013/1675. London: The Stationery Office.
Online example: The Export Control (Amendment) Order 2018. SI 2018/165. [Online]. London: The Stationery Office. [Accessed 15 May 2018]. Available from: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/
This is the one most non-law students need without knowing its name. Regulations, Orders and Rules are statutory instruments, and a great deal of the detail that actually governs practice — in health, education, environment and employment — sits in them rather than in the parent Act.
3. Law report (a decided case)
Template: Parties in the case [Year] Abbreviation of law report Page.
Example: Jones v Smith [1934] All ER 123.
Where the report has a volume number and the year is not needed to find it: Parties (Year) Volume Abbreviation Page — for example R. v Williams (1992) 2 WLR 32.
The square-versus-round bracket distinction is real and it carries meaning: square brackets mean the year is essential to locate the report; round brackets mean it is merely informative because the volume number does the locating. Leeds also notes that the first time you cite a case in your text you give it in full, including the parties, the law report abbreviation and the page.
4. Command paper
Template: Government department/committee/organisation. Year. Title. (Command no.). Place of publication: Publisher.
Example: Home Office. 2003. Identity cards: the next steps. (Cm.6020). London: The Stationery Office.
Note that command papers do have a corporate author, unlike Acts. Leeds warns that the command abbreviation varies by historical period, so copy it from the paper rather than assuming “Cm”.
5. Parliamentary bill
Template: Title. Year. (House abbreviated to HC or HL, Bill number, parliamentary session). Place of publication: Publisher.
Example: Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill. 2013. (HC Bill 7, 2013-14). London: The Stationery Office.
A bill is not law. If you are describing what the law currently requires, cite the Act; cite the bill only when your point is about the legislative process or a proposed change.
6. Government guidance and departmental circulars
Statutory guidance, codes of practice and departmental circulars are referenced as corporate-authored documents: department as author, year, italicised title, then the online elements. They are often what practitioners actually follow, and they are not the same thing as the Act — which is a distinction worth making explicitly in your dissertation rather than blurring.
The workflow, in five minutes per source
- Find the source on legislation.gov.uk by searching its title. Never construct a URL from a guessed year and number — you will land on a real but different instrument.
- Copy the chapter or SI number exactly as the page prints it.
- Check you are looking at the right version. Acts are amended. legislation.gov.uk distinguishes the version “as enacted” from the current consolidated text, and if your argument is about what the law requires now, the consolidated version is the one you mean.
- Build the reference from the pattern above.
- Record the access date if you are using the online form.
Step 3 is the one that separates a careful dissertation from a merely tidy one. Citing an Act “as enacted” while describing the law as it stands today is a substantive error, not a referencing one, and it is invisible to anyone checking only your formatting.
When Harvard is the wrong style
If you are writing a law dissertation, almost all of the above does not apply to you. UK law schools overwhelmingly require OSCOLA, which puts citations in footnotes rather than in author–date brackets, and which requires separate tables of cases and legislation at the front of the dissertation. The workflow differs from the first sentence — start with our guide to OSCOLA referencing for a law dissertation and our guide to the doctrinal law dissertation instead.
Non-law students occasionally get told to use OSCOLA for the legal sources only, inside an otherwise Harvard dissertation. That is unusual but not unheard of, and it is a question for your supervisor rather than a decision to make alone. Mixing two systems without being told to is a reliable way to lose presentation marks.
Five mistakes that cost marks
- Making Parliament or the website the author. The Act’s title is the author position. The website is where you accessed it, which belongs in the online elements.
- Omitting the chapter number. It is part of the reference and it is printed on the source.
- Citing a bill as though it were law. Check whether it received Royal Assent before you describe it as a requirement.
- Citing the original version while describing current law. Use the consolidated text when your claim is about what applies now.
- Confusing the Act with the guidance. A code of practice interprets an Act; it is a separate source with a separate reference, and conflating them misstates what the law requires.
The wider rules — which Harvard your department means, what the 13th edition of Cite Them Right changed, and the four standard patterns — are in our complete UK Harvard referencing guide. If your sources include AI output as well, see how to reference ChatGPT and generative AI in Harvard.
If the referencing is what is eating your final week, that is clerical work no marking criterion rewards. Tesify builds your bibliography from what your text actually cites, in your chosen style. Everything stays 100% written by you, and it is free to start.
Frequently asked questions
How do you reference an Act of Parliament in Harvard?
The Act’s title and year take the author position, followed by the chapter number in brackets and the publication details: Modern Slavery Act 2015. (c.30). London: The Stationery Office. Add the online elements and an access date if you used it online.
What is the chapter number and where do I find it?
It is the Act’s sequence number within the year it was passed, printed on its legislation.gov.uk page as, for example, “2015 c. 30”. It is part of the reference, not optional detail.
Do I cite the Act or the section?
Reference the Act in your reference list and point to the specific section in your text where the section matters — “under section 4 of the Mental Capacity Act 2005…”. The reference list entry stays at Act level.
Why are some case years in square brackets and some in round?
Square brackets mean the year is needed to find the report. Round brackets mean the volume number locates it and the year is informative only. Copy whichever form the report itself uses.
Should a non-law student use OSCOLA?
Only if your department tells you to. The default for non-law subjects is the department’s usual style, with legal sources handled by the patterns above.
How do I reference a code of practice or statutory guidance?
As a corporate-authored document: issuing department as author, year, italicised title, then the online elements. Keep it clearly distinct from the Act it interprets.
What about Scottish, Welsh or Northern Irish legislation?
The same shape applies, with the relevant designation in place of the chapter number — asp for Acts of the Scottish Parliament, for example. Take it from the source’s own page rather than adapting an English example.
Do I need a table of legislation?
Not usually in a non-law dissertation, where legal sources sit in the ordinary reference list. Tables of cases and legislation are an OSCOLA requirement for law dissertations.