Commentary on Sections Overview Overview Section 155: Interpretation of sections 153 and 154
589.This section provides definitions of constitutional authorities for the purposes of the two previous sections. It is based on section 509 of ICTA, paragraph 11 of Schedule 12 to the Northern Ireland Act 1998 and section 85 of the Government of Wales Act 2006.
590.Subsections (1) and (2) rewrite the source legislation to reflect the effect of devolution settlements. See Change 15 in Annex 1.
591.The Government of Wales Act 2006 created a new devolution settlement for Wales. It replaced the National Assembly for Wales constituted under the Government of Wales Act 1998 (“the old Assembly”) with a new National Assembly for Wales. Schedule 11 to the 2006 Act provides for functions conferred on the old Assembly (with certain exceptions that are not relevant here) to be transferred to the Welsh Ministers. It is in theory possible that schemes such as are mentioned in section 509(1) of ICTA could have been approved by the old Assembly before its functions were transferred to the Welsh Ministers. A paragraph in Schedule 2, the Schedule of transitionals and savings (reserves of marketing authorities etc), affecting section 153(5), covers this possibility.
592.Subsection (1) refers to “a Minister within the meaning of the Northern Ireland Act 1988”. This rewrites the reference in section 509(3) of ICTA to a “head of department” read with paragraph 11(1) of Schedule 12 to the Northern Ireland Act 1998.