Under the Law Commissions Act 1965, the Law Commission is required to submit programmes of law reform to the Lord Chancellor.

The latest topics put forward for consideration include a review of the use of ‘e-signatures’. These are becoming increasingly common as they allow documents to be signed and executed very quickly and the electronic version is then available for storage.

However, although their use is commonplace, legislation does not specifically deal with them, leading to the possibility that a claim could be made that an e-signature is not valid. The Commission has therefore selected the topic for its 13th Programme of Law Reform in order to give their use the required certainty.