Constitutional embedding and devolved competence
Parts 1 to 3 of the Act operate so that any requirements created after its entry in force that would impede the operation of the UK internal market will have no effect. It will therefore no longer be possible to enforce requirements that would interfere with the operation of the principles outlined in the Act.
	The devolved administrations were restricted in their ability to legislate by the UK’s membership of the European Union single market. Leaving the single market removes those restraints and sees new powers flow to the devolved administrations. But there do need to be rules that govern how all the legislatures of the UK legislate to ensure the UK’s internal market is not disrupted. Those rules the Act puts in place are only those required for the effective functioning of the internal market.
	This affects legislation in areas of devolved competence made by the Scottish Government, Welsh Government or Northern Ireland Executive, or passed by the Scottish Parliament, Senedd Cymru or Northern Ireland Assembly. In this way, the Act’s provisions create a new limit on the effect of legislation made in exercise of devolved legislative or executive competence. For example, section 2(1) disapplies any legislative requirements that do not comply with the mutual recognition principle.
	The same is true of secondary legislation made by UK ministers after the Act’s entry in force.
	It remains possible for a future Act of the UK Parliament to expressly disapply the operation of the Act in future.
	Part 4 of the Act confers on the CMA, acting through the Office for the Internal Market task groups, advisory, reporting, monitoring and intelligence-gathering functions to assist with the effective operation of the UK internal market. These sections provide that the Scottish Ministers, Welsh Ministers and Northern Ireland departments may request that the CMA exercise its functions in relation to a particular matter, just as the UK Government may do so. Where the CMA provides a report at the request of one of the devolved administrations on the impacts of a regulation implemented by another administration, there is a duty on the administration to make a statement before its legislature.
	Part 5 requires public authorities, including the devolved administrations, to have regard to the need to maintain Northern Ireland’s integral place in the UK internal market, when dealing with matters arising from the Northern Ireland Protocol. It also prohibits such authorities from imposing new checks, controls or administrative processes on goods from Northern Ireland. It prohibits any public authority other than the Secretary of State from making a State aid notification to the European Commission under Article 10 of the Protocol.
	Part 6 grants power to a UK Minister of the Crown to provide funding across the following range of purposes: economic development, infrastructure, culture, sporting activities, and international educational and training activities and exchanges. These purposes fall within wholly or partly devolved areas under the Scotland Act 1998, Government of Wales Act 2006 and Northern Ireland Act 1998. The new powers sit alongside the existing powers by which the UK Government can fund in relation to devolved matters across the devolved nations, in particular the Industrial Development Act 1982. This creates a means for the UK Government to provide funding across a range of largely devolved areas that would sit alongside any funding provided by the devolved administrations in those areas.
	Part 7 amends the Scotland Act 1998, Government of Wales Act 2006 and Northern Ireland Act 1998 in order to make clear that the regulation of distortive or harmful subsidies is a reserved matter. The scope of the new reservation will regulate the effects of distortive or harmful subsidies, whether that is in relation to international trade or the UK internal market.
	The Act will be a protected enactment under the Scotland Act 1998 and the Government of Wales Act 2006. It will be an entrenched enactment under the Northern Ireland Act 1998. This means that it cannot be modified by the Devolved Legislatures, and so it will not be open to those legislatures to disapply the provisions of the Act or modify their effect.