Overview Section 1 – Modification of Ports Act 1991
7.Part 1 of the Ports Act 1991 makes provision regarding the formation of companies by certain harbour authorities (which are generally trust ports) and the transfer of the property, rights, liabilities and functions of those authorities to those companies.
8.Section 1(2) of the Act provides for the repeal of sections 10 to 12 of the Ports Act 1991 in relation to Scotland.
9.Section 10 of the Ports Act 1991 allows the Scottish Ministers to issue a direction requiring a harbour authority with an annual turnover over a specified level to form a company and prepare a scheme to transfer the authority’s property, rights, liabilities and functions to the company.
10.Section 11 of the Ports Act 1991 defines the annual turnover requirement for purposes of section 10. Section 12 confers power on the Scottish Ministers to make a scheme to transfer a harbour authority’s property, rights, liabilities and functions to a successor company formed under section 1(1) where the scheme submitted by the harbour authority under section 10 does not accord with advice given by the Ministers in relation to the preparation of the scheme and the Ministers cannot modify the scheme to accord with their advice.
11.Section 1(3) and (4) of the Act makes the following modifications of other sections of the Ports Act 1991 in consequence of the repeal of sections 10 to 12 of that Act:
	subsection (3)(a) repeals the reference to a notice under section 12(3) of the 1991 Act in the definition of “the Gazette” in section 20(1) (meaning the Edinburgh Gazette for the purposes of Part 1 of the 1991 Act in relation to a harbour in Scotland);
	subsection (3)(b) repeals the references to a notice under section 12(3) of the 1991 Act in:section 20(3)(a) (which relates to the meaning of the publication of a notice in the Gazette and local advertisement for the purposes of Part 1 of the 1991 Act); andsection 20(6) (which provides that a notice in relation to a transfer scheme affects any harbour for which the port authority that is the subject of the scheme is the harbour authority); and
	subsection (4) repeals section 37(4)(a) and (b). (Paragraph (a) of subsection (4) of section 37 of the 1991 Act provides that any order under section 9(7) of that Act, as it applies to a scheme under section 10 (by virtue of section 10(5)), is subject to the affirmative procedure. Paragraph (b) of that subsection applies the affirmative procedure to an order under section 12(8) of the 1991 Act.)