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Finding Parliamentary & government publications: Government Publications

A general guide to finding UK Parliamentary papers, debates and other official publications

What are Government publications?

Government publications include:

  • all items published by TSO (The Stationery Office), formerly HMSO
  • items made available by government departments and organisations
  • items produced by other bodies linked operationally or financially to those departments

One can only guess what the total output of government publications may be. The listing and recording of these publications has improved, but is still not comprehensive.

The majority of current government publications can now be found on the Internet. Indeed many are only made available electronically, mainly through the website of the issuing body, whether the UK Parliament, a government department or an agency website.

Further information

For more information about older government publications, published before the onset of the Internet, you may find the following book in Special Collections helpful:

Finding non-Parliamentary publications

The following sources include coverage of government and other official publications not published by Parliament: