legal-terms legal-history great-britain
Legal Definition of &quot;Great Britain&quot;
<p><strong>Great Britain</strong> is the geographical name of the largest island in the British Isles (sometimes inclusive of the smaller islands on its insular shelf) but the name has, at least in the past, also been used as the name for a political entity or entities.</p>
<p>The 1707 Act of Union created a new kingdom by combining the previous Kingdom of England with the previous Kingdom of Scotland and naming that new political entity the <strong>Kingdom of Great Britain</strong>.</p>
<p>However in 1801 a further Act of Union created a new kingdom by combining the previous Kingdom of Great Britain with the previous Kingdom of Ireland, so that the territory of the new kingdom was no longer co-terminous with the island of Great Britain as it previously had been (if you include the smaller islands on the insular shelf).</p>
<p>The phrase <strong>Great Britain</strong> (without being prefixed with the word <em>Kingdom</em>) is of course used today to refer to the British Islands as a whole - as in <em>Team GB</em> - but there is some discussion about how correct it is to use <strong>Great Britain</strong> in this way. What is correct usage in the English language is not primarily or only a legal question but if a word has a specific defined legal meaning that can be part of the argument as to what general usage is correct/desirable. So that is the context but my question is the narrow legal question:</p>
<p>Does the phrase <strong>Great Britain</strong> have a precise <strong>legal</strong> meaning over and above its purely geographical meaning - for example is it defined in any statute in any of the six legal jurisdictions of the British Islands?</p>
<p><strong>Note:</strong> Official publications often use loose language. For example the <a href="https://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/newsroom/blog/whats-the-difference-between-uk-britain-and-british-isles" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Ordnance Survey blog</a> states:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Great Britain is the official collective name of of England, Scotland
and Wales and their associated islands.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>which is ambiguous but at first sight looks as if might be talking about a definition of <em>Great Britain</em> as a political term but <a href="https://www.irishpost.com/life-style/difference-uk-britain-british-isles-north-south-ireland-explained-irelands-complicated-history-85459" rel="nofollow noreferrer">elsewhere</a> the OS are quoted as saying that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Great Britain is the official collective name for the <strong>landmass
encompassing</strong> England, Scotland and Wales and their associated
islands.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>making clear that it is the geographical <em>Great Britain</em> which is being referred to.</p>
<p>And dictionary definitions vary but my question is specifically about any statutory <strong>legal</strong> definition.</p>

<p>It does not need to be expressly defined in statute in order to be legally effective. Courts have no trouble interpreting ordinary words used in their conventional way. And there is no other definition that could work instead, considering the full body of law that (1) intends to apply to the whole of the United Kingdom, (2) often distinguishes between &quot;Great Britain&quot; and &quot;Northern  Ireland&quot;, (3) often distinguishes between &quot;England&quot;, &quot;Wales&quot;, &quot;Scotland&quot; and &quot;Northern Ireland&quot;, (4) treats &quot;Great Britain&quot; as synonymous with England, Wales and Scotland, and (5) often uses &quot;Great Britain&quot; without further ceremony, as if it's a term that doesn't need to be explained.</p>
<p>It is helpful that legislation (at least in the modern era) is consistent about the view that &quot;Great Britain&quot; refers precisely to England, Wales and Scotland all together. By virtue of the Interpretation Act 1978,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>&quot;United Kingdom&quot; means Great Britain and Northern Ireland.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>from which we may deduce immediately that Great Britain means the United Kingdom except for Northern Ireland. There is no sibling '&quot;Great Britain&quot; means...' clause, but construing it any other way than the normal meaning would not work. From the combined definitions of &quot;England&quot;, &quot;Wales&quot;, &quot;British Islands&quot;, etc. - which by reference, also deal with such historically doubtful areas as Berwick and Monmouthshire - there is no other way to interpret the term &quot;Great Britain&quot; without distorting the required meaning of &quot;United Kingdom&quot;. Including too much or too little in &quot;Great Britain&quot; would give the wrong result, in particular for statutory extent clauses that refer to the whole United Kingdom and ought not to accidentally leave out Cornwall or include Hanover.</p>
<p>We do not need to go as far as the Acts of Union, which is lucky since that would entangle us in concerns about whether &quot;England&quot; includes &quot;Wales&quot;, or other historical anomalies that are not relevant in current law. I would treat the Acts of Union as giving added force to the conventional meaning, rather than being the <em>source</em> of that meaning, since there are uses of the term which seem to be more about Great Britain considered as a place than the political entity. For example, the Food Safety Act 1990 s.18(3) talks about &quot;any food which has not previously been used for human consumption in Great Britain&quot;, which seems to talk more about the food culture of the place, even predating the Acts of Union, than about the Kingdom of Great Britain or its successors.</p>
<p>The term &quot;Great Britain&quot; is frequently used in statutes in the customary way. For example,</p>
<ul>
<li>The Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 s.28 creates a &quot;Great Britain register&quot; and a &quot;Northern Ireland register&quot; of political parties, and s.38(1)(3)(b) provides for the &quot;Great Britain register&quot; to cover precisely England, Scotland and Wales.</li>
<li>The Northern Ireland Act 1998 s.87 is about provisions of UK social security law that operate differently in Great Britain and Northern Ireland.</li>
<li>The Electricity Act 1989 (as amended) provides for the issue of &quot;GB certificates&quot; as opposed to &quot;NI certificates&quot;, and also defines &quot;the relevant part of Great Britain&quot; as meaning either &quot;England and Wales&quot; or &quot;Scotland&quot; (s.32M(1)).</li>
<li>The Agriculture Act 2020 s.35 provides for a &quot;red meat levy&quot; to be paid between &quot;one country in Great Britain&quot; and &quot;another such country&quot;, and goes on in 35(8) to list the levy bodies for England, Scotland and Wales.</li>
</ul>
<p>So all of this points to the same common meaning as in everyday life. In court, for example, Lord Hoffman in Serco v Lawson [2006] UKHL 3 had to consider the Employment Rights Act 1996 s.196, since repealed, which governed &quot;work wholly or mainly outside Great Britain&quot;. (And by the way, in 196(1)(b) is a listing of &quot;England and Wales&quot; and &quot;Scotland&quot; as the two possible bodies of law relating to Great Britain.) In his judgement, he says:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It is true that section 244(1) says that the Act &quot;extends&quot; to England and Wales and Scotland (&quot;Great Britain&quot;). But that means only that it forms part of the law of Great Britain and does not form part of the law of any other territory (like Northern Ireland or the Channel Islands) for which Parliament could have legislated.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>That is, he does not find it difficult to gloss the extent provision in 244(1), which doesn't include the exact words &quot;Great Britain&quot;, as actually referring to Great Britain.</p>
<p>Other legislation refers to &quot;Great Britain&quot; as a locale, like the Wild Animals in Circuses Act 2019 which talks about &quot;an animal of a kind which is not commonly domesticated in Great Britain&quot;. This is a straightforward reference to the kind of activities typically going on in that location, treating it as the island(s) and not the political entity. The expression does not include the territorial sea, by default; some statutes include it, like the Gas Act 1986 s.5(9) which says:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>For the purposes of this section a place is within the jurisdiction of Great Britain if it is in Great Britain, in the territorial sea adjacent to Great Britain or in an area designated under section 1(7) of the Continental Shelf Act 1964.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>There are several other instances of particular statutes defining &quot;Great Britain&quot; to <em>include</em> adjacent waters, but they do not define the core concept of Great Britain otherwise. They do not need to.</p>

<p><strong>Is it defined in any statute?</strong></p>
<p><strong>Yes</strong>: by <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/aep/Ann/6/11/part/1?timeline=false" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Article 1</a> of the Union with Scotland Act 1706 (not to be confused with the <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/apgb/Ann/6/40/contents" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Amendment Act of 1707</a>) which according to legislation.gov has not been repealed so is still &quot;good law&quot;:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>That the two Kingdoms of England and Scotland shall upon the First day of May which shall be in the year One thousand seven hundred and seven and for ever after be united into one Kingdom <strong>by the name of Great Britain</strong> And that the Ensigns Armorial of the said United Kingdom be such as Her Majesty shall appoint and the Crosses of St. George and St. Andrew be conjoyned in such manner as Her Majesty shall think fit and used in all Flags Banners Standards and Ensigns both at Sea and Land.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>My understanding of the two <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/primary+secondary/1800?title=Union" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Acts of Union 1800</a> with Ireland (in force in 1801) is that they created the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (the latter changing to Northern Ireland after Eire independence) and so maintained the extant definition and use of &quot;Great Britain&quot;.</p>
<p>And for interest, some light reading on <a href="https://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/newsroom/blog/whats-the-difference-between-uk-britain-and-british-isles" rel="nofollow noreferrer">the difference between UK, Great Britain and the British Isles</a> courtesy of the Ordnance Survey.</p>
