102.Under regulation 10 of the 1947 Regulations the Secretary of State must “cause to be prepared” a printed document known as the “annual edition”. Regulation 10 also requires the King’s Printer of Acts of Parliament and HMSO to print and publish the annual edition. Within the annual edition (and in accordance with regulation 10(d)) there are to be tables showing the effect on existing enactments of any amendments made to them, by the statutory instruments included in that annual edition (namely, the statutory instruments that have been made in the calendar year to which the annual edition relates).
103.The website operated by The National Archives (on behalf of the King’s Printer of Acts of Parliament), www.legislation.gov.uk, provides access without charge to most (but not all) types of legislation and their accompanying explanatory documents. This includes statutory instruments made by the Welsh Ministers (and previously the National Assembly for Wales), Acts of the Senedd and Measures of the National Assembly.
104.Alongside copies of enactments as they were made or enacted, the website also publishes versions of the enactments in ‘revised form’. ‘Revised’ in this context means that amendments made by subsequent legislation are incorporated into the text shown online. For each enactment, the website also includes a table listing each amendment that the enactment makes to earlier legislation, and a table listing each amendment that subsequent legislation makes to the enactment and showing the derivation of the amendment.
105.Section 37U therefore requires the King’s Printer for Wales to publish online tables showing the effects made to enactments by Acts of the Senedd or Welsh statutory instruments. In practice this information will be published on the legislation.gov.uk website (currently this is shown on the “More Resources” tab of an Act or instrument).
Commentary on Sections Part 2 – Publication Etc. of Welsh Legislation Section 37U – Publication of effects of legislation