Legal status of the notes
7 Explanatory notes are not legislation. They do not form part of the bill and are not amendable by Parliament nor endorsed by it. They are not designed to resolve ambiguities in the text of the bill. The notes must not purport to give authoritative rulings on the interpretation of the proposed legislation, as only the courts can give these.
8 After Royal Assent, the final version of the notes will be published alongside the Act. Occasionally it may be that the notes are referred to in litigation (on a basis analogous to that which allows Hansard to be taken into account under the conditions contained in the rule in Pepper v Hart). So it is important that the notes do not mislead; and that they do not include material which seems to take the law further than the bill or Act does.